#child whose entire existence is basically a memorial to how fucked up things got in my absense

[warcraftish]

On a scale of 1-10, how much would it hurt Wranduin shippers if Anduin turned up to the Dragon Isles and immediately started putting the moves on Sabellian?

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[luminousalicorn]

I apologize if this is intrusive, please feel free to ignore if so. (I am asking mostly because I would like more information on this topic for myself, not to stalk you.) How do you feel about having had children? Is there anything about parenthood that isn't as you expected? Do you feel that you still have a full life yourself?

I love having kids and am delighted to have them and plan to have some more.  It’s incredibly cool that something can be that valuable and I can just manufacture ‘em at home with ingredients I already possess.  (Hi, spouse.)

They are a lot, though.  I recommend to anyone on the fence about having kids who can feasibly arrange it to live with - not babysit, not even necessarily do a ton of caretaking for, but just live in the same house as - young children.  There’s not a great way to convey the merciless relentlessness of having a child who insists on continuing to exist and want and need regardless of how much sleep you got, how sick you are, how many times you have already read that book, how tired your arms or how aching your feet, how hungry or sweaty or needy-for-cognition you’ve gotten, how much or little support happens to be available that day.  It’s a lot.  I have a ton of support, and I also have more support now than I did when my first was new.  Not coincidentally, I barely remember my first baby’s infancy and am enjoying the second one lots more.  I was not getting enough sleep to form many long-term memories, first time.  Lots of people tolerate sleep deprivation better than I do, to be clear, but you need to be aware that it’s a whole fuck of a lot.

But man, they’re so cool?  If you spend that much time around a little person you get to be able to read them pretty well and they’re doing such cognitively fascinating things constantly, you get to watch all kinds of atomic human concepts be broken down into pieces by the force of a tiny mind trying to grow.  Probably not everyone gets a kid as cool as mine, who is four and can read and do her own D&D arithmetic and play a competent game of chess and rack up hundreds of XP on Duolingo a day, but my understanding is that people whose kids are less objectively cool also find things to appreciate about them.  Also did you know babies in addition to being adorably incompetent are soft, and smell good, and if you have your own baby nobody will think it’s very weird if you put your entire face on your baby for these reasons even well past the point it would be super weird with somebody else’s baby, and also if you are fortunate your baby might laugh about it?

Diapers are nothing and sleep is everything.  Parents aren’t better at parenting tasks because of magic or even because they responsibly read the entire parenting manual, they’re better at them because they are forced to practice way way way more than anyone would naturally choose to practice any such tasks (and accordingly your skills will be uneven depending on how you divide those tasks).  Like many things, parenting is subject to the novel intervention effect where if you try something that seems like it might help, it will probably help, but only for a little while, so your creativity is very much a limiting factor on your effectiveness.  Your house will not be clean for several years unless you throw really quite a lot of money or time at it.  The constantly asking “why” thing is not an imaginary stereotype, they actually do that.  Teething is bad.  Sleep training is bad and the only thing worse than sleep training is not sleep training (some people can get by with co-sleeping or whatever, we can’t.)  You will spend a truly unreasonable amount of time thinking about and discussing human waste.

I do not feel that I have given up anything I was in fact doing to have kids.  However, this has something do to with the stuff I was in fact doing.  My hobbies are writing and reading and faffing about on the Internet and cooking.  You will notice I did not include, say, exciting travel, or actually anything that takes me out of my house or renders me unavailable for more than a couple hours in a row.  Do some people have kids and also hobbies that involve leaving their house for more than a couple hours in a row?  Sure!  How do they do that?  I have no earthly clue, I had to negotiate with my coparents to arrange those couple hours twice weekly in which I can go sit in the yard and read half a novel without being festooned with children.  (I’m the primary caretaker; my coparents would have less necessary negotiation to do that sort of thing.  I on the other hand have been asking permission to take showers for the last four years because the buck stops with me unless I make really sure someone else is aware that they have taken possession of the buck and can’t drop it in my lap until I re-emerge.)  Maybe they hire more babysitters (we’ve managed to almost totally avoid leaving the kids with strangers), maybe they embark on logistics projects in order to have their kids come with them whitewater rafting or whatever, I don’t know.  Ask one of them.  My life is basically like it was before except now it is 85% kids by volume.  It turned out the rest of it compressed pretty well, with some adjustments.

Look at my preternaturally photogenic baby.

[vegalocity]

Idea for the White Bone Amnesia but either Red Son or Xiaotian get sucked into the calabash bc Yin and Jin don't understand timing or fall under some desire spell. But the confused victim finds themselves in a world where the events that led to DBK being sealed away never happened and Red Boy and Qi Xiaotian's courtship was never broken off. (Not sure if this is making sense but...)

Aight so i think i get what you're talking about, basically 'calabash schenanigans but it uses the what if concept of 'DBK doesn't get sealed away' so either of the boys ends up in a setup where their childish courtship simply continued' yeah?

because that sounds like fun

but idk if it would work. Granted how the way i've been having this whole thing exist as a problem in the first place (And referencing like, SO much Sleepless Domain to do so bc i'm basic) i don't think it would necessarily work quite right

the way i've been having it so far is that anyone whose had their memories particularly fucked with (currently only Red Son, MK, and Pigsy though Red Boy's part in The Journey has been deleted from everybody's minds at this point (except Maybe SWK but i'm not sure how much resistance he'll put up to all of this after a certain point)) Straight up can not mentally process what they've forgotten. Like, just being told the information could send any of them into a complete stupor as their minds simply reject the information present and have no other way to do so but shutting down entirely.

So if either Red Son or MK got put in something that would inherently harken back to Red Boy and Xiaotian's shared past, i think it would fuck either of them up pretty badly. Like, the calabash is broken or whatever it is that's doing this is lifted and whichever was put in there is just- completely catatonic. Like stand him up and tug him forward his feet will work and keep him upright and walking, but nobody's home.

Actually that might be a very interesting setup because then those that are In The Know (Tang, Wukong, and Sandy rn) could possibly be put in a situation where they're forced to experiment with the limitations of the memory gaps. Like... could they conceivably explain to Pigsy and Red Son that MK was SWK's actual child but something happened to erase his memories and they're trying to reverse it, then tell Red Son and MK that Pigsy is Zhu Baije but somehow he'd lost his identity and they can't figure out why, and then nobody remembers what Red Son has on the plate but he's the one who went catatonic in the calabash so clearly he IS involved somehow because they've only seen that happen to people whom have had their memories fucked with.

And Xiaojiao is the only one that CAN be told the full story and it suddenly becomes a juggling game of 'who knows what and what's safe to tell whom'

But if the appeal here is exploring that What if, then it wouldn't be Red Son or MK that got put under this Calabash 2.0 or put under the spell or whatever it is that's happening.

It would be Sun Wukong. Whom at this point in time wants nothing more than to have back the people that have been stolen from him.

[genshin-djinn]

Genshin Impact Chapter 1 Act 3: A Reaction.

Chapter 1 Act 3 is what took my experience with this game from “good game” to “masterpiece”.

THIS POST CONTAINS MANY, MANY SPOILERS FOR GENSHIN IMPACT CHAPTER 1: ACT 3

Genshin Impact has some problems— actually, it has a shit ton of problems. But during the fight against hordes of Fatui, with the Adepti channeling their abilities through my gang, flying through them as Oz, decimating them with Diluc— I just thought, this is the best time I’ve had in a mobile game in my life.

This game might not be perfect now— it’s only a quarter of the way done if we’re counting Karenri’ah. But it will be a fucking masterpiece once it’s all out. If this is the level of quality we’re getting for our archon quests, this game is going to be an amazing time on story alone.

KEQING

I love Keqing with all my heart. If she were alive today she would be a socialist here to topple the ruling 1%. When ningguang asked Aether who they trusted more, her or Keqing, I hit the Keqing button as fast as possible.

I think one of my favorite things about Keqing is that she’s so completely honest, which is unusual for a Liyue politician. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll speak out against it. If she thinks something else should be happening, she’ll make it happen. She can probably be deceitful at times, but in general she’s straightforwards in that she wants a government for the people and by the people.

I can’t wait for her story quest!

NINGGUANG

pretty.... voice pretty....

Ningguang is cool. Her JP voice is very pretty, like she could do ASMR videos online or smth. One thing I decidedly did not like about Ningguang is how her personality just ???? flips? In the middle of the quest, for no reason other than “because plot”.

It’s established that Ningguang cares about two things more than anything— the Jade palace and Mora. Why, then, would she destroy the Jade palace for the sake of Liyue? I get that she’s a good person at heart at all, but I want to see more of her indecision, her brain saying “mora” and her heart saying “Liyue”. The way she just flips on a dime isn’t really strange but it does contradict with her preexisting characterization.

Childe’s Boss Fight!

The section of this quest from Childe’s fight to the Adepti + Qixing battle is just nonstop adrenaline.

Childe is IMO a lot more fun than Dvalin (sorry Dvalin). I’m at WL5 and have a tendency to play fast and loose with important mechanics like.... dodging, for example.... and Childe’s Mask Electro form ended up destroying my team. I killed him with Guoba because everyone else besides Xiangling was dead. I

Another thing I really enjoy about Childe’s boss fight is that in the irrationalities of Childe as a character, it actually makes sense. Genshin is decent at making weekly bosses logical excursions— Andrius wants you to get stronger, Dvalin’s weekly fight is ~~all a dream~~; but tbh sometimes the weekly bosses don’t make sense. Andrius wants to train us, not murder us! How does dvalin, a dream slash memory that doesn’t exist, manage to knock someone out?

Childe as a weekly boss actually makes perfect sense. He’s an adrenaline junkie addicted to the thrill of fighting people— to put this in modern AU terms, he’s the guy who’s first in line to ride the rollercoaster that failed all of its health and safety checks. Childe wants to befriend the Traveler entirely because they’re stronger than him, so that he can fight them over and over again until he’s the strongest. Of course, this will never happen, because the Traveler is the MC and therefore is stronger than all others. However, in this way Childe being a repeatable boss makes 100% perfect sense— he actually wants to fight the Traveler again and again and again.

The one question I have about Childe is how in the living feck are the Fatui letting him join the Traveler and fight for them *against the Fatui*??? I think this might be touched on in Childe’s Story quest, which I’ll do in a bit, but like????? They let him keep his delusion and just walk over to Aether like “aight fam I’m on your team now”? How?

Jade Chamber/ Guizhong Ballista vs Sea Monster Fight!!

Basically, all my charged adrenaline from nearly dying to Childe just came to a head in this one huge fantastic fight.

And Xiao :)

I absolutely loved seeing the Adepti and the Qixing work together. This fight was probably my favorite fight in the whole game— the music was amazing (soundtrack where), the graphics were so nice, the adepti were so feckin cool, using everyone’s abilities was n I ce. My adrenaline was reaching its highest point at this fight and it was just perfect. It was just so fecking fun after days of WL5 pain, having to pop like five ultimates to kill one hillichurl, to be able to just demolish swathes of enemies with Fischl and Diluc, run around like a madman thanks to Xiao, have infinite health idr who did that for me but bless them, just absolutely destroy.

Ever since I hit WL5 I haven’t been able to really just go insane during a fight and stop caring about HP/ when to use skills/ dodging and this have me that opportunity.

Zhongli’s Deal

*punches Zhongli across the room with the power of being the player character* I love this man so much.

Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli. I AM VERY ANGRY AT HOW THE PLOT RESOLVED HIS STORYLINE. But it also makes a lot of sense. And I think, for once, Zhongli should be allowed to be selfish.

Because choosing to leave Liyue was a bit selfish. He’s leaving the country that adores him, loves him, gives him shit for free; to its own devices and then to a completely unknown fate once the new Geo Archon becomes god and takes over. But he made a frankly fantastic plan and can now leave the country, for now, in peace.

I was absolutely delighted to see Zhongli in Morax form. Making deals with La Signora, being a complete and utter puppet master who set this entire situation up and played Childe like a kazoo; but just like his dear friend Venti, I think Zhongli is happier when he’s just Zhongli, the eccentric mortal. He seems so much happier and so much more relaxed when he’s forgetting about mora and eating dinner with Aether and Paimon. Rex Lapis might have just put Liyue through the wringer, but he can now put down his 3000- year long reign and just be the happy, eccentric Zhongli.

Zhongli’s little bit of insecurity over being a “bourgeois parasite” makes perfect sense now— he doesn’t want to be seen as Morax, a superfluous god who’s using his name to get whatever he wants from the humans he watches over.

But also the part of my brain that feeds off lore nEEDS to KNOW what Zhongli got from Tsaritsa. What could be worth a gnosis? His own happiness isn’t enough— Tsaritsa is likely going to use his gnosis to try and destroy Liyue. What could be worth that?

My main thought would be either “someone’s protection” or “another gnosis”, but I don’t think the latter is possible. The former could be possible but doesn’t really make sense either— a) whose protection is worth putting an entire country, much less the world, in danger and b) the Fatui are out to kill everyone who isn’t Fatui, so they won’t agree to spare a major player in the war to come like that. Brain go brrr.

I’m very hyped for Zhongli’s story quest, which I think is coming with his banner on Dec 1, when Childe’s banner ends. I really hope that Zhongli visits Mondstadt and chills with Venti for a while, but anything with this guy would be fine lol.

LORE

We got a lot of lore this update and I am delighted by it.

Firstly, we get a tiny hint of how Visions are bestowed— “if a person shows true strength of will at a desperate and fateful moment in their life, the gods will look upon them with favor.” Vague but more than we had before.

Next we got some neat lore about Inazuma— firstly, that it’s led by a god named Baal and secondly that it steals everyone’s visions. I’m very hyped to visit because guess what fam aether doesn’t have a vision.

Final Thoughts

In case you can’t tell from my insane ramblings, I loved Chapter 1 Act 3 and I absolutely cannot wait to play through Childe’s story quest and Chapter 2 and beyond.

The Prologue in Mondstadt set the stage for Genshin. We started out in a fantasy environment with a fantasy tale of an immortal bard and a dragon. Mondstadt was an excellent introduction to the world of Genshin.

And now? We’re starting to build on that. Chapter 1 brings us another story of another god and their relationship with the country they watch over. Liyue is much less of a traditional fantasy setting and takes the darkness we saw in Mondstadt— a friendship ruined by manipulation and suffering— and build on it. Now we don’t just see the Fatui more often but we also see more of the Treasure Hoarders and the way both groups kidnap and experiment on humans.

Mond started to introduce us to the Fatui, but Liyue is where they really start bringing continuous plot relevance. Inversely, we saw much more of the Abyss Order in Mondstadt than we did in Liyue. I’m extremely disappointed we didn’t see any more of the Princess this chapter, but it makes sense given that Chapter 1 was really more about the Fatui than the Abyss Order.

All I’m trying to say is the Liyue arc was an excellent continuation to the stage Mondstadt’s arc set. Now, we’re on to the world of the Eternal Shogun, Baal! I’m really excited to meet new characters and experience new stories of Inazuma, but I hope we’ll continue to see Mondstadt and Liyue in the future. Mondstadt is likely going to be the most “boring” of the countries we experience, cuz it’s just so classically fantasy- themed, but it will always be the first country we explored in this world.

After Inazuma (if I had to take a shot in the dark, inazuma’s arc will take from December 23 to maybe March or April) we’ll go to Sumeru, which I am really extremely hyped for because it sounds extremely different from Mond and Liyue and we’ll meet Cyno and possibly even Collei! (just me extrapolating lol). I can’t wait to see where Genshin Impact goes story- wise, because its first major update has brought so much to the table.

.

[shera-dnd]

Lori’s New Troll Lore

So me and my friend took very different approaches to rewriting the lore of these fantasy races. While Sal had the approach of making all the canon lore be born from in universe racism and misunderstandings, while creating the real lore of what these people really are instead of how they’re perceived by external groups (which is a fucking amazing btw)

I decided to go with a simpler approach of taking the very basic of what is canon to the universe and then reworking it so that it becomes its own unique thing, free of the usual yikes.

So what do we know for sure about troll canon. Well they can regenerate like crazy and can only be killed by fire or acid. They have amazing dark vision, at the price of being sensitive to bright lights (apparently that’s not in their stat sheet, but it’s referenced in lore). They’re a matriarchal society (weird how only evil cultures are matriarchal in D&D. I wonder why that would be the case), lead by shamans. And they’re sorta kinda giants, because they were born of the demigod Vaprak, who was born from... well when The All Father pulled a Zeus with a sorceress (Yes, depicting a child born from this kind of shit as inherently monstrous and evil is profoundly fucked up)

As you can see this shit is just full of yikes, but there are still a lot that can be salvaged here and put to good use creating an interesting story, so let’s see what I managed to make with all this

(I added a keep reading link, because this shit got loooooooooong)

~~~

Fire is the greatest enemy of Troll kind. It blinds them, it burns their flesh and it reminds them all of their own mortality, to this terrifying force of nature they show equal parts fear and respect. For in the hands of the old and wise, fire can still be used to make grand things.

Of course most troll children aren’t born with this inherent knowledge, so little they’re exposed to anything that could ever do them real harm. Young trolls have this sense that they’re immortal, invincible. When two trolls fight they could suffer terrible wounds that would kill even the mightiest of human warriors a dozen times over, and still get up and laugh it off.

From this two things can be gathered about troll kind. First that their disdain for armor and fancy clothes, comes entirely from practical reasons. What point is there in wasting resources in equipment that will get completely destroyed in a quick scuffle.

Second, that when it comes to real conflict, who wins is not the strongest troll, but the smartest. In the absence of fire or acid, the only real way to best a troll is by outsmarting them or outrunning them. This is one of the many reasons why it is wisdom, and not strength, that makes for a great leader. 

It is also wisdom that allows for some trolls to work terrifying force of fire. Those who can treat that force with respect and who have fully understood what it means to hold in their hands the only thing that can kill their own people.

Still fire is very rarely used. They do not need it as a light source, they do not need it to cook their food or to heat their bodies, and they have very little use for metal tools. Fire in troll culture serves only one use, as a funeral pyre.

In the rare occasion when a troll truly dies, their body is burned and their ashes returned to the world. To many young trolls this is the first time they’re shown the destructive force of fire and learn of their own mortality. But in a way this ritual is less about how a troll dies, but more about how a troll lives on.

From those pyres banquets are prepared, their ashes are spread and seeds are planted where they were scattered. In this way a troll’s death is simply a means for them to truly become immortal.

In recent years metal tools have also been forged from these pyres, as more and more other cultures push into troll land, the more they must protect themselves from those who so carelessly brandish flame and magic.

Of course there are always grand tales about these tools, both of the people who brandished them and the people who became them. There are legends of an old troll queen whose corpse refused to burn away, keeping her pyre burning from 7 days and from that fire many grand weapons are forged - some hich are said to still carry her will.

Or perhaps the tale of the old wise woman who used a shield and a hammer to create an avalanche, thwarting a conquering army and humbling their warlord. It’s said that the shield forged from her pyre could stop even the acid breath of a black dragon.

Those are the story of the great troll people, of their strength and their wisdom, carried on in the world around us and in the many stories of their children.

~~~

Okay so that was a lot. One last bit that I wanted to write down is how they relate to the 13 classes of D&D. Gonna keep these quick and simple, because jesus christ I’ve been writing this shit for over an hour

Artificer: One wouldn’t expect them to have many artificers, but you’d be surprised with how much they can achieve without the use of metal. Ingenuity and cleverness goes a long way for Artificers and trolls have plenty of that. Though they do tend to prefer Alchemy as their field of study.

Barbarian: Rarer than most people think. Unyielding rage will only ever get you so far when fighting other trolls and their rage can’t do much to protect them from magical fire. Those that do exist lean towards the Path of the Ancestral Guardian

Bard: The living memory of the troll people. They retell the grand tales of their ancestors and share their wisdom with new generations. Many who follow this tradition lean towards the College of Lore

Cleric: Trolls prefer to worship their ancestors more than they worship gods. The one exception being Vaprak themself, as they’re the oldest of troll ancestors. Clerics do not have a particular preference towards any domain, as there’s certainly at least one great troll out there with a tale relating to each of them.

Druid: The most common of spell casters and wise leaders in troll communities. Though they may join any circle, the Circle of the Moon seems to attract particularly few of them, as their bodies far outmatch those of most natural beasts.

Fighter: Where there’s a fight to be had, there are fighters to fight it, troll culture is no exception. 

Monk: Troll martial arts tend to center around grappling and pinning their foe, a victory by submission is often the best one can hope to achieve when dueling another of their kind. Still there are some who learn the ways of the Monk and how to channel their Ki to make their bodies even deadlier

Paladin: There are no classic paladin orders to be found among trolls, but as rare as they might be, there are still individuals who would dedicate so much of themselves to a cause that something out there - ancestor or god - is compelled to land them their aid.

Ranger: No society would have ever gone that far without rangers, hunters and guides, to lead them through the natural world. Trolls are no different.

Rogue: It may seem silly to think of something as large as a troll sneaking around, but it’s this sort of thinking that makes such clever people the deadliest and fiercest among their kind.

Sorcerer: Sometimes magic simply manifests itself to a person. Elves, humans, orcs and trolls alike, magic flows through them all and can awaken just as easily in any of them.

Warlock: Most trolls who seek this path are too young to understand the consequences of they’re doing. Perhaps they have never seen a funeral pyre being lit and are confident of their own immortality, or perhaps they have and are doing everything within their power to avoid such fate

Wizard: Only the old and wizened are ever allowed to take such a path, for such terrifying power cannot be taught to one who would use it carelessly, and far too many tales were ended far too soon by a single stray spell.

AND WE ARE FINALLY DONE. Hope you enjoyed this absurdly long read and please feel free to offer me feed back and your own unique takes on other fantasy races. Please do keep your advice constructive. I know I probably fucked up some bits back there, but nothing here is set in stone and a lot can be rewriten and changed as necessary

[themattress]

OUAT AND ME: SEASON 3

Story - Season 3 was the first season to (intentionally) divide itself between two story arcs, with the first half being the Neverland Saga and the second half being the Wicked Saga. While the Neverland Saga focused on the journey of the show's main characters through Neverland as they conquer their own inner demons in order to save Henry from the clutches of Peter Pan, the Wicked Saga focused on a new Dark Curse being cast on Storybrooke and the main characters' fight against Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, who is working toward a secret objective that will allow her to exact revenge on Regina, the Evil Queen.

The Neverland Saga, in the present day sequences, is the best the show has been since the Enchanted Forest quest early into Season 2. In its best moments, it's even on par with the Dark Curse Saga of Season 1. Seeing all of the characters work together toward a shared goal after all the clashing agendas from the previous season is so refreshing and exactly what the show needed, and everyone undergoes some kind of character development and gets their moment to shine. Greg and Tamara are killed off within the first few minutes of the premiere episode after finding out that "the Home Office" was the Lost Boys all along, and Peter Pan is quite possibly the greatest Big Bad in the show's entire run, and certainly among its most popular for just how wonderfully menacing, manipulative and despicable he is.

Unfortunately, I can't extend the same praise to its flashback sequences. The ones that involve Rumpelstiltskin and Hook in the 4th, 5th and 8th episodes are great and connect to the current narrative, but I take issue with all of the others in some way, big or small. The flashbacks in the 2nd, 9th and 10th episodes have fuck-all to do with what's currently happening in Neverland, and while the ones in the 3rd and 6th episodes do, there are too many issues in them to consider them good. For the 2nd, 6th and 10th, the problem is that the show is starting to contrive new "Snow White and friends vs. the Evil Queen" stories where they don't belong and aren't needed, and it especially has a negative impact on the Evil Queen since this is the point where she shifted from slightly campy to overtly campy, her menace quota reduced to virtually nil. For the 3rd, giving Regina and Tinker Bell a past connection is fine and works for the story, but the way they do it is stupid and with dire consequences later down the line, plus the show doesn't get much into her connections with actual Peter Pan characters like Hook, Wendy, and, well, Peter Pan. And as for the 9th, I actually have quite a lot to say on that so I'll save it for when I'm discussing Episode Quality.

My thoughts on the Wicked Saga have not changed all these years later: it's a textbook example of They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot. With the set-up it starts with: a new Dark Curse, a new Big Bad, and new dynamics between many of the characters, they had the chance to take the show in a bold new direction following the ending of the Neverland Saga wrapping up the plot that's been going on since "Pilot". But instead, Adam and Eddy fall back into their bad Season 2 habits, and the result is that the show settles into this kind of bland status quo that it won't ever be able to shake off. The arc isn't actually a bad one, as it's solidly structured just like the Dark Curse and Neverland Sagas and there's a lot of great moments and developments made. It just falls short of the greatness that it could have had.  

Characters - Everyone's more likable now! At least until they aren't.

* Emma takes center stage in the Neverland Saga. After finally learning to believe based solely on faith instead of always waiting for evidence to do so, she takes charge as the leader of the group affectionally dubbed "the Nevengers" by fans. In learning how to be a leader, she is able to learn more about herself and become an even more confident and decisive hero. Tragically, her character arc isn't fully resolved before it gets cut off by the events of the midseason finale, leaving her in a state of anxiety and uncertainty in the Wicked Saga before finally making her way back to the resolution of her character arc in the season finale. And on paper, this sounds fine, but in execution Emma's character through the majority of the Wicked Saga is a one-note bore who mainly exists to prop up the development of other characters. She isn't as sidelined as badly as she was in the latter half of Season 2, but still not ideally handled, especially when much of the story arc is specifically building toward only her being able to defeat Zelena only for Regina to do it instead. However, the resolution her character receives in the finale is handled exceptionally well, so I guess it all balances out in the end.

* Snow is actually back on top form in the Neverland Saga and it's wonderful to see, but it doesn't last into the Wicked Saga where she's back to the insipid, Regina-coddling weakling that Season 2 turned her into, whose biggest contribution to the plot is simply having a baby. Charming is a lot more interesting, as in the Neverland Saga we get to see his David Nolan weaknesses return but this time as a result of his Charming strengths, which is a fascinating dynamic to see at work and leads to some great interactions between him and Hook, a relationship that got started in Season 2 and will only continue to grow (and occasionally regress) as the show continues. And in the Wicked Saga, he has an entire episode dedicated to his feelings of failure as a father and how he fears that he might fail his second child too.

* Henry....still sucks, damn it! For a story arc with the mission statement of Save Henry, the Neverland Saga makes it difficult to care about saving him when he's portrayed as so stupid and gullible and easily led by his captor, Peter Pan, to the point where he literally sacrifices his heart (the Heart of the Truest Believer) to him against the pleas of his father and mothers. And while he has the potential to become more interesting in the Wicked Saga due to having lost his memories, the show totally ruins it by giving him his memories back by the end, because Heaven forbid that Regina pay a lasting consequence for her decades of villainy.

* Oh, and speaking of Regina, like Snow she's also really good in the Neverland Saga only for the Wicked Saga to ruin her again. In the Neverland Saga, she establishes herself as the Token Evil Teammate of the Nevengers, who knows she's a sociopathic villain and owns it as she utilizes her skill set for the greater good. Her line after ripping out a Lost Boy's heart at Emma's behest sums up why she works so well in this arc: "She didn't. I did. That's what I'm here for. One happy family." This should have been Regina's seasonal character arc and her status within the show going forward: a part of the family who may be evil and grouchy and not get along with everyone and even antagonize other members of the family, but who can still be counted on when push comes to shove and whom the other members of the family stand on equal grounds with and can push back against. It's the ideal recipe for a slow-burn redemption where by the end of the show she's truly become a semi-decent person. Just the act of destroying and fully reversing the Dark Curse in the midseason finale alone, at the cost of Henry losing all his memories of her while she gives him and Emma good memories of having always been together was a powerful start to such a redemption. It was all right there.

But of course, Adam and Eddy could never let their precious Regina go so long without having all of the things both she and they believe she is entitled to. So in the present-day story of the Wicked Saga (she's still fairly decent in the flashbacks), Regina gets a handsome soulmate in Robin Hood, and validation over her more powerful half-sister, and engagement in family dinners, and reconciliation with Snow without her expressing any remorse or apology toward her (Snow puts the blame on herself instead - "I was such a brat!"), and Henry with all of his memories back, and to out of nowhere and without her heart in her body become a powerful practitioner of light magic to the point where she's basically the Savior now! Yes, she seems to lose Robin at the end when Maid Marian is brought back, but that just ends up making her victim complex and blame deflection even stronger ("You're just like your mother!" she says to Emma, "Never thinking about consequences!" Because how dare she bring back one of Regina's past victims and allow her to be reunited with her family!)

In short, the Wicked Saga put a sudden fast-forward on Regina's redemption, giving her all sorts of goodies that would make sense as individual karmic rewards on a slow-burn redemption but make no sense when they happen in quick succession. And then at the end, they took one of those things away just to make her seem like more of a martyr, something they've been doing ever since the end of "Queen of Hearts" back in Season 2 and at this point I was sick of it. Little did I know it was about to be taken to a whole new level...

* Rumple wasn't bad in the Neverland Saga, per se, in fact he's amazing in the last four episodes. But early in, he backtracks on the goodwill he built up in the Season 2 finale by arrogantly abandoning the rest of the Nevengers to go rescue Henry all by himself, and all this accomplishes is getting him lost in the jungle, crying over old childhood dolls, being plagued by a hallucination of Belle, taunted by Peter Pan, and having an underwhelming reunion with the son he thought had died only to quickly come to blows with said son as he begins showing signs of temptation from his selfish self-preservation instincts at the expense of Henry's well-being once again. It just gets tiring after a while and you're glad when Regina verbally bitch-slaps him back into some semblance of his old self, which leads to the aforementioned amazing moments where he reconciles with the other Nevengers, confronts his father, and ultimately masterminds the heroes’ action plan in the midseason finale which culminates in his final redemption as he sacrifices his life to take down Pan once and for all.

But therein lies the problem: Rumple's entire series-long character arc just came to its natural conclusion. He chose love over power and courage over fear, standing up to the father who ruined his whole psyche and giving his life for his loved ones. However, since it's the middle of the season and Robert Carlyle is still contracted for more, they had to resurrect him. This decision cheapening his sacrifice is bad enough, but the writers also have no real idea what to do with him for the rest of the arc other than act crazy in a cage and then serve as Zelena's meat-slave, which is even less fun to watch than him moping around in the jungle was! While him deceiving Belle and killing Zelena at the end promises better things for him in the future, it's still a slog to have to sit through what preceded it, and you never quite shake off the feeling that the show might have been better off if it only had the balls to leave him dead.

* Hook was already one of the best additions to the cast in Season 2, but Season 3 is where he truly shines. He is in his element in the Neverland Saga, bonding with Emma and Charming while he rediscovers the more heroic and honorable side of himself. The insight into his past especially helps with this, as we better understand where he came from and how he got to where he was when we first met him. And in the Wicked Saga, he is the impetus behind Emma regaining her memories and returning to Storybrooke to be the Savior once more, as we learn that he had attempted to return to his old pirate ways back in the Enchanted Forest but ultimately couldn't do it, as his experiences with Emma and his love for her had changed him for the better. And so when he learned her family was in trouble and needed her help, he sacrificed the Jolly Roger and his pirate captain status in order to get back to her. After learning this on top of all the time they spend together, particularly in that very season finale, Emma finally lets down her walls and enters a romantic relationship with him...and I can't blame her in the slightest, because out of all her love interests, it's clear that she and Hook have the most in common and have the best chemistry. It’s True Love.

* This also might just be the best season for Belle as a character. Her focus episode in the middle of the Neverland Saga is actually about her and her desire to be a hero and contribute to the cause rather than just about her romance with Rumple, and she gets to be a badass who saves the day and makes a great new friend in Ariel. She's also good in the Wicked Saga, where she bonds with Neal, takes Hook and Regina to task for their past misdeeds against her until they apologize and make it up to her, and continues to be a valuable asset as the town librarian and scholar. Pity we can't feel happy for her on her wedding day, though, as even in his goddamn proposal to her Rumple manages to be the worst lover ever.

* Neal is promoted to a regular character this season, which naturally means he's its designated screwed-over regular who won't make it to the next season! It's a shame since despite how miscast Michael Raymond-James continues to be, Neal is better written in this season than he was in the previous one. Through both the Neverland and Wicked Sagas, he shows a passionate desire to be a better father to Henry than Rumple was to him, to not repeat the same mistakes that Rumple made. And so when he is separated from Emma and Henry, he becomes obsessed with getting back to them no matter what the cost, veering dangerously into Rumple territory as he starts dabbling in dark magic. But when the ritual to resurrect his father so that he can find a way back to Earth costs him his life, he ends up accepting his fate rather than cling to life like a coward and risk becoming just like Rumple. While I don't particularly miss him nor do I find his heroic death enough to warrant Snow and Charming naming their new son after him, I'm glad in the end he was able to break the cycle.

* Peter Pan, as I said before, is a top contender for the show's greatest Big Bad. Much of it has to do with Robbie Kay, who absolutely nails the cocky and charismatic yet malicious and frightening qualities that you expect to see from an evil version of Peter Pan. He is so utterly, thoroughly, skin-crawlingly evil that you are invested in the heroes' quest less out of concern for Henry and more because you want to see this demon child be defeated. And of course, there's his backstory and true identity - he's actually Malcolm, Rumple's father, who cruelly abandoned him in order to bond with the Eldritch Abomination personifying Neverland's dark side and obtain eternal youth. But eternal youth doesn't mean eternal life, and Pan will die unless he obtains the Heart of the Truest Believer belonging to his great-grandson, Henry.

While this backstory is divisive among fans, I'm in the camp that loves it. Not only does it add a greater layer of depth to Rumple and his story and make Pan both more pitiful and more reprehensible, but OUAT is at its best when it uses fairy tales to explore real issues, and this is a quite literal exploration of "Peter Pan Syndrome", where adult men selfishly remain in arrested development even when they become fathers. It also really boosts Pan's Ultimate Villain cred, as none of what transpired in the show would have happened if he hadn't abandoned his son and scarred him for life. He is Patient Zero for all the characters' suffering.

* Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, naturally feels like a step down when compared to Peter Pan, but this isn't for a lack of effort on the part of the actress, as Rebecca Mader is delightful as she chews the scenery in a blaze of bug-eyed, bared-teeth, shrieking, cackling, psychotic glory. The issues with Zelena are in the writing. First off, making her Regina's half-sister is questionable given that we just had a villain with a secret familial connection with one of our mainstay baddies, which was following from an evil woman with a familial connection to Regina specifically! And them being sisters doesn't have much bearing on the conflict beyond explaining why the Wicked Witch has green skin (it magically turned green out of jealousy for Regina), and she only has green skin in the flashbacks anyway. It also doesn't track with how they first present Zelena in her backstory: she's a girl who wants love and a place to belong, but the moment she discovers she has a sister in another realm her reaction isn't to seek her out and bond with her but "why does she have all of that power and privilege, I oughta have all of that, it's not faaaaaaaaair!" She also lusts after Rumple who, having previously insisted that no-one could ever love him, casually admits that "he has that effect on women" and stops training Zelena because he accepts as fact that she loves him more than anything else and so she can't cast the Dark Curse for him. It makes no sense.

On top of that, her big secret plan ends up being anticlimactic - she wants to create a time travel spell so that she can go back in time and make herself the one who casts the Dark Curse for Rumple - and she is defeated ridiculously easy by Regina's out-of-her-ass light magic powers and then unceremoniously shivved by Rumple in her jail cell. All while Adam and Eddy drop boulder-sized hints that she isn't really dead and we haven't seen the last of her. Then why "kill her" to begin with? Why not just keep her imprisoned? Like I said, Zelena is a good idea for a character and with a great actress, but the writing really let her down.

* Beyond the usual side characters around Storybrooke who are fine as usual, we get several new ones that all make an impact. There's Felix, Pan's creepy and fanatical right-hand boy; Tinker Bell the cynical exiled fairy turned reluctant ally of the Nevengers; the adult versions of John and Michael Darling who run the anti-magic group Greg and Tamara belonged to on Pan's behest since he's holding Wendy hostage; Liam Jones, the deceased older brother of Killian Jones; Ariel of The Little Mermaid fame played to adorable perfection by Joanna Garcia-Swisher, Blackbeard the pirate who serves as Hook's arch-rival in their mutual field of interest; and Glinda the Good Witch who protected Oz until Zelena ousted her from power.

And then there are the new ones that make much less of an impact such as a charisma-free Prince Eric; Walsh the Wizard of Oz (and Emma's short-lived boyfriend, and a flying monkey - yes, he's really all three of those); a bland version of Rapunzel; a dumbfounding semi-villainous adaptation of Lumiere the talking candle, and Dorothy Gale who is so devoid of anything special or interesting that she's a slap in the face to her literary and cinematic counterpart. I'm not sure what went wrong with these characters, but it went very wrong.

However, one side character needs to be addressed above all others: Robin Hood. He's back and involved in the present day story, now played by Sean Maguire instead of Tom Ellis, and the revelation via Tinker Bell's pixie dust that he's Regina's "soul mate" is the start of his character being butchered beyond repair. The sad thing is that it could have worked: the argumentative, mutual dislike yet still caring about each other type of relationship they have in the flashbacks was perfect and should have continued, progressing naturally into Belligerent Sexual Tension and finally romance as Regina becomes a better person. Instead, when they lose their memories and meet again in Storybrooke, it's now love at first sight and instant romance, with Robin being disgustingly courteous and compliant toward Regina (claiming she's "bold and audacious, but not evil"). Robin Hood is supposed to stand against corrupt, oppressive tyrants, not fall in love with them, and Regina is nowhere near out of her corrupt, oppressive tyrant mindset yet. But she's Regina, Adam and Eddy's favorite character, and so if Emma's getting a sexy British love interest than so must she, regardless of how it clashes with his code of honor! Ugh, such a waste of a great hero, and of a good actor.

Atmosphere - Remember when I said that Season 2 got dark in the bad way? Well, the Neverland Saga is dark in the good way, where the darkness isn't coming from a constant steam of personal misery, heinous actions, and the heroes failing against the villains, but from things that are suggested and things that lurk in the shadows, from trials the heroes must face in order to come out stronger that come off almost like an intense form of therapy, and from a particularly evil villain who will do anything to get what he wants.  The fight against said villain also restores the tit-for-tat style of combat that Season 1 did so well at, with both the heroes and the villain getting the best of each other on multiple occasions so that it feels like a legitimate struggle rather than a never-ending one-sided blowout like it was with Cora.

Unfortunately, the show also takes this dark atmosphere to way too literal an extreme. The choice to keep Neverland in the present day always at night seems cool early on, but the novelty wears off quickly when you feel like you've been looking at the same backdrop for scenes and even episodes on end. I think allowing some scenes to be at day or afternoon would have done wonders at keeping up a sense of variety - many gifsets online brighten up the pictures and they looks so much better as a result. This was a big wasted opportunity.  

The tone of the Wicked Saga is generally lighter and campier, with the only particularly dark things coming from Rumple and Neal's storylines, and that was definitely the right call since anything heavier after the Neverland Saga would start to feel oppressive. And again, the fight against Zelena is an even-handed one, with both heroes and villain getting to score points.

One of the biggest surprises upon revisiting this season is just how well Storybrooke was handled as a setting. It doesn't show up too often in the Neverland Saga but is well utilized when it is, and in the Wicked Saga we get a lot of new locations like Zelena's farmhouse beyond the woods and explorations of ones that were previously underexplored such as the docks and shipyard area. More importantly, magic shenanigans are kept to a minimum and for the most part there are actually sensible rules applied to them! Pan enacting the Dark Curse, the heroes counteracting him, Zelena's usage of magic, Emma learning to channel her inner magic, the séance to summon Cora's spirit, the time travel spell...they are things that don't just happen, there's stuff that has to be done and established beforehand. 

It's not all done well, of course - we get the worst excuse why no-one can leave the town line yet (flying monkeys will get you if you try!) and Regina's light magic is pulled out of her ass following a breaking of the Dark Curse from her that makes no sense (Henry wasn't under any curse, so a True Love's Kiss on him shouldn't break squat!), but it's a step up from Season 2, enough to fool you into thinking that Adam and Eddy have learned their lesson. 

Episode Quality - There's no bad episode in the Neverland Saga, although there are a few that stand out as weaker than the rest. "Nasty Habits", for instance, is kind of drag whenever Peter Pan isn't onscreen, since the Nevengers are stuck moping around at Baelfire's former tree house while Baelfire himself ("It's NEAL!") continues to be unable to sell the drama between him and his father in the way it deserves to be sold. And "The New Neverland", beyond having an awful title that gives everything away too soon, has a ridiculously fast-paced and repetitive plot in order to set up the midseason finale...a problem that could have been easily rectified had it not also hosted the most pointless flashback in the entire season.

And now I need to talk about the flashback in the episode before that one: "Save Henry", the climax of the Nevengers' time in Neverland. It's about how Regina first adopted Henry, and I actually really like it. It shows how she almost might have reformed after obtaining her new son but then discovered he was the child of the Savior, and unable to choose between him and her power over the cursed town, she copped out by drinking a memory loss potion. Not only is this tragic but it actually explains a lot about why Regina was so unstable and abusive in Season 1, since a flashback in that season had Snow drinking just such a potion to forget Charming and we got to see exactly what it did to her psyche as a result. However...this flashback didn't belong in this particular episode. Sure, Regina's love for Henry was a part of the present day story, but so was Emma's. And Neal's. And Pan's desire to fully assimilate his heart so that he could live forever. I really think that a flashback to Neverland in its prime, shared between Pan, Hook, Baelfire and Tinker Bell, would have been far more appropriate. After all, we hear a lot about those relationships, but I really want to see more of them.

I have few complaints about the present day narratives of "Heart of the Truest Believer", "Lost Girl", "Quite a Common Fairy", "Good Form", "Ariel", "Dark Hollow", "Think Lovely Thoughts" and "Save Henry", though, nor about the flashback of "Nasty Habits" that brilliantly composites Peter Pan with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, luring children away with a pan flute.

And then there's the midseason finale, "Going Home". Holy shit. This is the finale that gives "A Land Without Magic" a run for its money. It's not just the finale to the Neverland Saga, but the finale to the entire story that was begun in "Pilot", with every character making what appears to be their last stand. The stakes and the emotions run very high in this one, peaking with the double punch of Rumple's beautiful sacrifice to save his loved ones from Pan and the scene at the town line where Emma and Henry have to say goodbye to all of their friends and family from Storybrooke, with the town and the characters disappearing in a cloud of purple smoke as Emma and Henry drive across the town line, all their memories of the show's events forgotten but replaced with new memories implanted by Regina, memories of Emma never giving Henry up for adoption and them living happily together for years. It all started when Henry came to Emma's apartment to bring her to Storybrooke, and now it ends with them both leaving Storybrooke and heading toward their happy ending. It's perfect. 

The Wicked Saga had its work cut out for it in topping what came before it, and "New York City Serenade" following up the last minute, literal Sequel Hook of "Going Home" does end up feeling anti-climactic in how quickly Stoybrooke, its residents, and all of Emma's memories are restored (also, Emma's new boyfriend being a flying monkey was so dumb), but it's still a solid and enjoyable enough episode to watch, with its direct follow-up, "Witch Hunt", being even better. "The Tower" has great atmosphere and character development, and while "Quiet Minds" definitely could have been better, it could have been worse too. "The Jolly Roger", meanwhile, is the perfect midpoint episode, mostly a breather and a deeper exploration of Hook's character and how much he's changed in spite of him doing his damndest in the flashback to resist that change, as well as the welcome return of our fave fish-girl, Ariel. 

It's really just the four heavily Zelena-focused episodes "It's Not Easy Being Green", "Bleeding Through", "A Curious Thing" and "Kansas" that I have trouble with; I feel like the writers really dropped the ball on Regina and Zelena's conflict and individual character development in these episodes, which is ironic given that Evil vs. Wicked was the biggest thing promoted about this half-season arc and it ended up being its weakest element. 

The two-part season finale, "Snow Drifts" and "There's No Place Like Home", is both a weird and wacky homage to Back to the Future and a return to the series' magical roots. Emma and Hook's adventure to the time of the "Snow Falls" flashback is so much fun and is the perfect antidote to the last few lousy episodes. It also could have very well made an ideal series finale if five changes had been made to both it and the whole Wicked Saga's story: Neal would have to still be alive (that way we don't get the baby being named after him, which is stupid), Rumple would have to still be dead (so no lying to Belle via wedding proposal and killing Zelena), Zelena would have to still be alive and in jail (totally doable with Rumple not alive), Marian would have to not be included in the plot at all (past or present), and of course the stinger with Elsa showing up would have to be removed. Do that and it's a happy ending. But they didn't do that, so following a quick diversion, I'm stuck having to watch Season 4.

Overall - Just as there is no doubt in my mind that Season 1 is the show’s strongest season, there is no doubt in my mind that Season 3 is the runner-up. This is an all-around solid, largely well-crafted, entertaining season of television, especially the first half of it. During this season, I was proud to call myself a OUAT fan. It’s such a shame that the Wicked Saga didn’t end up innovating more and instead settled the show down into a status quo, because if it hadn’t done that then this season’s template would have been the one to follow for the rest of the show, with truly new and exciting story arcs in each half of a season that shake up the show and its characters for the better rather than always returning them to the same tired status quo that only lessens their appeal every time it happens. Oh, what might have been...

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #321

i’m exploring the deepest recesses of tumblr to unearth super old surveys, so you can expect an onslaught of ‘em.

When someone is tailgating you, do you drive faster or slower? I drive the same speed, even though it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. What place outside of your own home do you spend the most time at? My sister's place. Have you ever been snorkeling? No. Do most of your relatives live in the same state/province as you? No; only my parents and immediate sisters live here. Have you ever participated in a medical study? No. Is there a food you hate that everyone else seems to like? Especially where I live, fried chicken. It's disgusting. Have you ever had to evacuate from a natural disaster? No. Do you have any family members who are cancer survivors? Numerous, actually. Do you have any licenses other than your driver's license? I don't even have a driver's license, never mind anything else. What job does you significant other have? I’m single. When you were in elementary school, what was a typical afternoon like once you got home from school? I did my homework right away; well, after having a snack. After that, I was most likely on the computer playing Neopets or Webkinz, or something on the PlayStation. Is your favorite movie part of a series? Yes. Have you ever played in a water puddle? Sure, as a kid. I loved that. Have you ever played in a mud puddle? I don't think so. Have you ever kissed someone (outside) in the rain? Yes. He did it purely to be romantic, lol. Have you ever lost control of your car in the rain? No, thank fuck. Have you ever had to attend summer school? No. Have you ever experienced a summer where the temperature exceeded 120'F/49'C? Yikes, no, not that high. The highest we usually get is below 110. Do you live in a hot or cold (normally) climate? Hot. It sucks. Has your community ever had a “smog alert”? No. Have you ever raked leaves, and then played in them? Oh, absolutely as a kid. Dad would rake a pile just for us kids. Have they ever cancelled school because it was too hot? At least once, yes. Have you ever had to shovel snow? No. Have you ever experienced “cat’s breath”, where the wind was so powerful it took your breath away, literally? Yep, especially when I visited Sara and we went on a walk. It was fucking outrageous. Safe to say I didn't last long on that walk. Has your/or have you been in a car that was stuck in a snowstorm? No. What does your MySpace profile look like? I haven't seen it since that site was still "a thing." I do remember, however, that it was COVERED in meerkats, haha. Pictures, facts, etc. And my page song was "Pocketful of Sunshine" by Natasha Beddingfield lmao. Do you like living in the country or city better? Country, 100%. I'm not a city gal by any means. Do you have a big backyard? No, it's very small. Not used to that at all. What is your favorite Adam Sandler movie? I don't know, he's in too many to choose lmao. What was the last thing that surprised you? Apparently a rocket crashed today after launch. What color hair did your first crush have? Brown. Have you ever visited your state’s capitol building? No. I... didn't even know those existed lmao I feel dumb. Who was the last person that said something that warmed your heart? I'm not sure, but I'm quite certain my niece or nephew would be involved there, haha. What is your favorite park? I don't have one. Have you ever felt an earthquake? No. Do you believe anyone is asexual? ???????????? Yes???????????? Were you abused? No. Have you ever missed a deadline? Yeah. Can you tell Mary-Kate and Ashley apart in pictures? I haven't seen them in an eternity, idk. Describe your fondest memory: I don't really want to... but I'll entertain the question. It's hard to choose, and they just about all include Jason. I think what I hold closest though was our dance to "Stairway to Heaven" after prom in the headlights of his car in my front yard. It's something that physically hurts to remember. What song makes you cry every time you hear it? Let's set aside my "trigger songs" for this. "Terrible Things" by Mayday Parade does it very easily. How often do you break your promises? I almost never do. I don't bullshit around with promises. I've only ever broken ones I'd forgotten I'd made, if my memory serves me right. How long do you take in the shower, on average? Not even 10 minutes. Do you have your MySpace/Facebook profile set to a "friends only" setting? Yes. Did your last kiss mean anything? Why or why not? Of course it did. I care very, very deeply for her. Are your summers usually boring and relaxing, or busy and interesting? "Summers are hot and miserable." <<<< mood Tell me a crazy thing you did as a child. I don't really think I did anything "crazy" as a child, just weird. Like pretending to be a father penguin arranging rocks to mock a nest. I was fuckin weird. How many best friends do you have? One. When you’re upset, who do you wanna talk to the most? Either Sara, Mom, or nobody. Opinion on Daughtry? They're nice. "No Surprise" is positively beautiful. Do you like country music? Noooooo. What’s been the most awkward situation you've been in? Okay, possible TMI. Basically, Jason's parents arrived home way, way earlier than they were supposed to and my panicky ass couldn't find my clothes quickly, and when I finally did, I had to dress as quickly as possible in his tiny-ass closet while he distracted his mom and dad lmfao. I'ma just say it was a very close call to me melting into a mortified puddle. I look back on it and laugh now, but the absolute, throbbing fear I felt was NOT funny back then lmfao. Don’t you love that feeling when you look at someone and you just melt? <3 That is genuinely one of the best feelings in the entire world. Do you prefer male or female singers? I have no preference. So what are you planning for this summer? Nothing, really... Who knows where the Covid situation will be then. What’s a good book? In general for absolutely anyone, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. It is a book about pacifism that is so very deep and emotional. For women, I highly recommend The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. As a woman myself, the concept of the book is terrifying, to be reduced to reproduction machines without rights, so it's something you can really feel as a female. It's a book that definitely makes you want to fight for women's rights. Is it awkward for you when your parents talk to you about boys etc… No. I'm a grown woman. Now if she asked about my sex life (if I had one), I'd feel a bit weird, but not very. Do you like it when guys play with your hair? Yeah. Ever cried when you had to say goodbye to someone? Well of course. Over multiple people. Have your parents ever hated one of your boyfriends/girlfriends? No. Have you ever dreamt of someone you barely know? Indeed. Do you have a blood donor’s card? Yep. Have you ever taken a pregnancy test? I had to before surgery. Has anyone seen you naked in the last week? No. What kind of doctor did you go to the last time you went? It was via phone, but I talked with my psychiatrist a few days ago. Does your ex still think about you? I'm sure Sara and Girt do, as they're my good friends, but idk if either think of me romantically. I would hope Jason at least remembers me with some degree of care in his heart... As for Juan, Aaron, and Tyler, idk if they do and I don't really care. What has been bothering you a lot lately? My weight. Are you trustworthy? I think so, yes. Did your parents teach that white lies were ok? Yeah, but it definitely depends on the situation. Which literary character would you dress up as, if you had to choose one? Speaking of The Handmaid's Tale, for Halloween one year, I really, really want to take some cool photos of me dressed as a handmaid with a (obviously fake) blood splatter over my stomach. What (or who) is the best thing that ever happened to you? Being born with the mom I have, probably. I have no idea. None. Of where I'd be without her. Do you miss college? Sigh, sometimes... but I'm not going back. No chance. Dropping out three times due to my mental state hints at a clear pattern. Have you ever called a teacher “mom”? Yeah, accidentally. Except with my physical science teacher in HS that eventually became my "other mom" and most recently our landlord, even. I call her "Mama" sometimes. What was the name of your first imaginary friend? It was a wolf whose name I don't remember. What color was your nursery when you were a baby? No clue. What is your favorite arcade game? I desperately wanna go to a location that has Silent Hill: The Arcade. :/ That's on my bucket list. It's very rare. Are you allergic to grass? No. Do you remember to water plants? I don’t have any plants to water. What is your favorite fall drink? I don't drink any "fall" drinks. Favorite winter drink? Hot chocolate! Favorite spring drink? There are "spring" drinks? Favorite summer drink? Gimme a nice, cold margarita. Name three creative people you know. Sara, Tez, and Mini are some of the most creative people I've ever written with. Name 3 YouTubers you aspire to be like. Mark in like a million different ways, I look up greatly to Jeffree Star's work ethic (say what you will about him personally, but holy shit does mama WORK), and Emzotic for her incredible growth after trauma that's left her more confident than ever, and she's amazing with animals and just a darling overall. Does anyone know who your current crush is? Yeah, I'm pretty open about it. Have you ever been scammed? Not successfully, no. Which song describes your life? I relate to "Get Up" by Mother Mother a lot at this point in my life. If someone dislikes you, what is most likely to be the reason? Probably because I open up so slowly/am very secretive of myself when someone might be trying to get close. People have also criticized my laziness. Where did you meet the last person you swapped numbers with? YouTube. At least I think Tez was the last person I gave my number to. Who was the last person to add you as a friend on Facebook? Hunter, my neighbor growing up. Who was the last person that asked if you were okay? My therapist. I had to leave group due to severe abdominal cramping. It was just my period, but he just wanted to check. What was the last thing you bought from a vending machine? Probably a soda back when I was still in school. Has anyone given you butterflies recently? Actually yeah; I had a memory of Sara that caused 'em to revisit me. What was the name of the first person you ever had a crush on? Why did you like them? I'm going to exclude my puppy-dog crush (Dylan) and talk about my first "real" crush, Sebastian. I liked him because we had very similar interests, he was really friendly, nice, and funny, and he clearly trusted me a lot because he actually confided in me regarding the relationship he was in that was struggling and causing him a lot of pain. I thought he was attractive, too. Ngl, I wonder sometimes where we could have gone if he hadn't been dating the girl, because I'm 90% sure he was into me, too. In current times, he very recently got engaged! Super happy for him. Which parent do you identify with the most? My ma. What do you think you cook or bake the best? Scrambled eggs, I guess. That's just about all I CAN make, haha. My family likes 'em. I always use American cheese, salt, pepper, and a bit of hot sauce. What embarrasses you the most in front of other people? Admitting I RP. If you had to choose one thing you were most passionate about, what would it be and why? Of actually important things, gay rights. If we're talkin' passionate about anything, then the answer's meerkats, duh. Who are you most envious of—real or fictional—and why? A rival photographer that lives here. I absolutely hate admitting that, but yeah, I'm extremely envious of her. She gets way more traffic than I do by a long shot, even though I, from a completely modest and honest standpoint, genuinely think I do better work than her. It's just frustrating. All about who you know in this business. How old is the most expired item in your fridge? Supposedly our milk expired on the 1st, but it smells just fine? And mind you, I am very cautious with expiration dates, and I've found milk typically starts to smell bad a few days earlier than the date to me. This jug is an outlier. What are your favorite style of underwear? I'm a fat old lady that likes high-waisted underwear. What’s the saddest song you’ve ever heard? Maybe "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" by Alice Cooper. I could name tons, though. How about the sweetest song? Maybe "Easy to Love You" by Theory of a Deadman. Another song I struggle to listen to because it was one of mine and Jason's "songs." Do you know how to play dominoes? No. Are you proud of what you’re doing with your heart and time right now? Not in the least. Why or why not? I'm just wasting time. Doing nothing with true meaning, and I seem unable to get over this low point I'm in. How many bones have you broken? One. Well, I was told "fractured," but apparently that's the same thing as broken? Have you ever won anything? Big or small? Yeah, multiple things. What food will you absolutely not, under any circumstances, eat? Animals like cats or dogs. Pets, basically. I would feel WAY too weird. Has anything/anyone every saved your life before? Yes. What is one thing you’re embarrassed to admit you want to try? If I'm embarrassed by it, why would I share it with whoever reads these? What is the most important memory you have and why? When I decided it was truly time to move on from Jason. Why that's my most important is obvious: it changed my mindset and life in general. Is there something you wish you had said sorry for but never did? God, I hope Jason read my apology email I last sent him. I finally accepted I did wrong, too, and I want to know that he knows that. Who was the last person you know to have a birthday? My youngest niece's first birthday was mid-February. What’s a musical instrument you think sounds really beautiful? The violin. Do you play that instrument? I wish I could. Do you have a favorite type of pasta? (like a shape of noodles, not dish) Just spaghetti noodles, ig. How many times a day do you brush your teeth? Once. Who sent the last e-mail you got? My PHP therapist sent me the Zoom link to our group session. Do you have a favorite shape? Out of basic ones, circles. What’s the last song you bought/downloaded? I don't recall. Probably something by 3TEETH. Have you ever been on a trapeze? Hell nah. Do you buy chocolate after Valentine’s Day when it goes on sale? No. Do you personally know anyone who is an author? I met a poet at the psych hospital once. I also have an old friend who had something published in a magazine, I think. Do you own a polaroid camera? No, but I'd love to to take more ~aesthetic~ photographs sometimes. What is something you think is underrated? Snakes! :( They're not scary or gross, nor do they in any way deserve to be killed. I wish the worth of snakes was seen much more clearly. They are spectacular, intriguing animals. Around what temperature do you consider it to be too hot outside? Once it hits like 65*F, I'm starting to feel uncomfortable. In what ways do you expect your life to be different one year from now? I hope beyond hope that I have a job I enjoy. And that I'm driving again. What’s a hobby you used to have, but don’t anymore? I used to loooove video editing, but I've lost all motivation for it. Do you have any exercise equipment in your home? Somewhere we have this one stretchy thing that I have no idea what it's called, then there are two sets of small weights somewhere. Where is the farthest north you’ve traveled to? New York. Farthest south? Florida. East? Well, ya can't go more east in NC unless you want to drive into the ocean... lol. West? Illinois. If you have/want children, will you raise them similar to the way you were raised? If I had kids, I would in some ways, but in a lot of other ways, no. Do you have any unusual decorations in your home? Nothing strange, no. What is the highest level math class you’ve completed? I don't know. Not very high. Do you have an ebook reader? (iPad, Kindle, etc.) No. What kind of natural disaster is most common where you live? Hurricanes. Have you ever had an animal get into your attic? No. When was the last time you started a “new chapter” of your life? 2017, ig. What is the last random act of kindness you did? I guess you could consider a loving text to Sara a random act of kindness?

[drkfought]

  ─         the  mirrors  surrounding  you  did  as  they  were  meant  to ,  reflecting  back  a  spitting  image  of  avan  jogia    -    but  it’s  clear  something  is  wrong  from  the  moment  that  a  vision  of   𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨  𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺   strikes  you .    perhaps  it  was  a  passing  daydream  in  the  frenzy  of  the  funhouse .    you  reassure  yourself    -    you’re  𝐉𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄  𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐑 ,   a   𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺 - 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳   year  old   𝗕𝗔𝗥 𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥 / 𝗗𝗥𝗨𝗚 𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗥   whose  virtue  lies  in  your   + self  sufficiency   &   + rationality ,  although  you’ve  been  told  that  you  tend  to  be  quite   - suspicious   &  - blunt ,  and you’re associated with  𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌  &  𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐��𝒊𝒆𝒅  𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒔  𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒅  𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐  𝒂  𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒏  𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔  𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓  𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆 ,  𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅  𝒂𝒍𝒍  𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅  𝒕𝒉𝒆  𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎  𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉  𝒂  𝒃𝒐𝒚  𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅  𝒊𝒏  𝒕𝒉𝒆  𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓 ,  𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈  𝒕𝒐  𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆  𝒕𝒐  𝒃𝒆  𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅  𝒃𝒚  𝒏𝒐  𝒐𝒏𝒆 ,  by  those  around  you .    suddenly,  however,  you’ve found   𝐀  𝐉𝐎𝐘  𝐁𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐄𝐑   on  your  person    -    was  that  always  there ?     from  the  moment  you  leave  the  funhouse ,  memories  from  your  life  in   𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙡   have  begun  to  return   -   leaving  whoever  you  had  been  before  in  the  mirror’s  reflection  behind  you .    you  can  almost  hear   𝚁𝙰𝙶𝙸𝙽𝙶  𝙾𝙽  𝙰  𝚂𝚄𝙽𝙳𝙰𝚈   by   𝙱𝙾𝙷𝙽𝙴𝚂   following  in  your  wake .

if  i  could  pick  one  character  for  supernatural  to  revisit   ...   it’d  be  this  one .   the  potential  they  had  with  this  kid ?    unmatched .   instead  though  they  put  him  a  literal  singular  episode   &  despite  his  open  ended  disappearance  they  never  once  mentioned  him  again .    supernatural  sure  is  a  show .    anyway !    i  love  jesse   &   will  be  giving  him  the  acknowledgment  he  deserves .

full name :     jesse  anthony  turner . alises :   the  antichrist .  age :   twenty  four . gender & pronouns :   cis male ,  he / him . sexual & romantic orientation :   homosexual / homoromantic . species :   virgin  born  cambion  ( half - human ,  half - demon  hybrid ) . identifying  marks :   several  tattoos  ranging  all  over  his  body ,  though  none  above  his  chin .

   ─        𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍  𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 .

as  far  as  jesse  knew ,  he  was  a  normal  boy  from  nebraska .   his  parents ,  though  they  often  left  him  alone ,  loved  him  well  enough .   they  doted  on  him  when  they  were  home ,  even .    kept  him  almost  sheltered  in  many  ways  but  it  never  bothered  jesse  as  a  child .    nothing  bothered  him .   not  until  he  was  twelve .

after  a  series  of  extremely  strange  deaths  in  town ,  alliance ,  nebraska  attracted  the  attention  of  the  winchesters .    upon  investigation  they  found  jesse  being  the  only  thing  linking  all  the  murders .    the  link ?    harmless  pranks   &   child  superstitions  were  becoming  true .    joy  buzzers  would  electrocute  you .   itching  powder  would  cause  you  to  scratch  your  scalp  off .    step  on  a  crack ?   well  ---  your  mother  won’t  be  in  good  conditions .    all  of  these  were  pranks  that  jesse  believed .   when  jesse  was  told  the  truth ,  that  joy  buzzers  were  harmless ,  sam   &   dean  found  they  went  back  to  being  that  way .    somehow ,  though  unexplainable  to  them ,   jesse  was  unknowingly  warping  the  reality  around  him  to  what  he  believed .

answers  came  in  the  form  of  their  angel  friend ,  castiel ,  who  informed  them  jesse  was  the  ultimate  weapon  of  hell  for  the  apocalypse :   the  antichrist .    jesse ,  it  was  revealed  to  them ,  was  actually  adopted .   his  birth  mother  was  a  woman  named  julia  wright  who  carried  &  birthed  jesse  while  being  possessed  by  a  demon  which  made  jesse  half - human ,  half - demon  hybrid ,  otherwise  known  as  a  cambion .    what  was  more  important  is  that  though  julia  was  jesse’s  mother ,  he  had  no  father .   not  just  in  the  absent  sense ,  but  in  the  entire  sense .   julia  wright  was  a  virgin .    being  what  he  was ,  jesse  had  immense  powers  that  activated  when  lucifer  escaped  his  cage  in  hell .    the  longer  lucifer  was  on  earth ,  the  stronger  jesse’s  powers  would  continue  to  grow .

cas  informed  the  winchesters  of  the  dangers  jesse’s  existence  threatened  &  though  they  disagreed  with  him ,  he  went  to  kill  jesse .   when  sam  &  dean  made  it  to  jesse’s ,  they  found  he  had  used  his  powers  in  self  defense  to  transform  castiel  into  figurine .    the  two  of  them  explained  to  jesse  that  he  powers  in  the  easiest  way  they  could ,  trying  to  spare  the  boy’s  feelings  to  get  him  on  their  side ,  but  demons  had  a  different  idea .   they  interrupted  sam   &   dean’s  attempt  at  recruiting  jesse  to  their  side  by  breaking  the  truth  to  him .   about  his  mother .   about  what  he  was .   about  how  powerful  he  was .     jesse ,  tired  of  both  sides ,  commanded  the  demon  to  leave   (  which  it  did ,  unable  to  disobey  jesse’s  control )  then  told  sam   &   dean  he  would  go  upstairs  to  say  goodbye  to  his  family   &   get  his  things .   

after  waiting  for  sometime ,  the  winchesters  went  to  go  check  on  jesse  only  to  find  him  gone  with  nothing  but  a  goodbye  note  to  his  family .   cas ,  now  back  to  being  an  angel  rather  than  an  action  figure ,  appeared  to  tell  them  the  antichrist  had  vanished  once  more .    the  boy  had  run  away  to  spare  his  family  from  danger   &   get  away  from  being  used  as  a  weapon .    he  was  never  found  after  his  disappearance ,  his  powers  making  him  unable  to  be  detected  by  any  angel  or  demon ,    &   it’s  unknown  what  could  have  happened  to  him .

  ─        𝐀𝐋𝐔��𝐀𝐑𝐃  𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 .

jesse  grew  up  with  his  mother  in  this  world ,  but  it  wasn’t  pleasant .   his  mother  hated  his  estranged  father   &   because  of  this  she  put  hate  onto  jesse  who  simply  had  to  bare  it .    she  drank   &   she  ignored  him   &   he  made  due  for  himself  despite  it  all .    when  he  was  six ,  cps  took  him  away  from  the  situation   &   jesse  entered  the  foster  care  system .    he  was  already  older  than  most  adopting  parents   &  his  cold  personality  didn’t  help  either .    he  was  bitter   &   borderline  cruel  sometimes  if  only  because  he  didn’t  trust  the  adults  who  came  near  him .   

bumping  around  from  foster  home  to  foster  home ,  jesse  had  very  few  constants  in  his  life .    one  of  them ,  though ,  was  his  best  friend  zagreus .    the  two  started  getting  along  when  jesse  was  in  middle  school   &   zag  quickly  became  jesse’s  ride  or  die .   they  got  into  trouble  together  off   &   on   &   as  they  went  into  high  school  jesse  would  let  his  friend  practice  stick  &  pokes  on  him  as  he  encouraged  zag’s  tattoo  artist  dreams  when  zag’s  parents  wouldn’t .

he  was  finally  adopted  at  age  sixteen   &   though  his  adopted  family  has  tried  to  be  close  with  him ,  jesse  still  keeps  them  at  arm’s  length .    they’re  a  patient  lot ,  though .    which  is  new  for  jesse .    an  unconditional  love  isn’t  one  he’s  often  been  around .

now ,  at  age  twenty four ,  jesse  works  for  the  cat’s  meow  in  town  as  a  bar  tender .    &   when  that’s  not  making  him  enough  money  he  also  deals  drugs  on  the  side  however  first  time  or  inexperienced  buyers  usually  end  up  getting  overcharged  for  scams  by  him .    if  you  buy  from  jesse ,  its  recommended  you  go  into  the  situation  knowing  what  exactly  youre  talking  about . 

 ─        𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑  𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 .

resident  bad  boy  that  your  parents  warn  you  about .    piece  of  shit  little  disrespectful  delinquent .    if  you  pay  him  $10  he’ll  yell  at  your  parents  for  you .

if  you  get  close  to  him ,  though ,  he  will  secretly  care  very  deeply .   close  friends  will  know  the  truth :   he  has  a  huge  soft  spot  if  you  can  find  it .   he  will  deny  this  fact  if  you  say  anything  about  it .   he  has  a  reputation .

he’s  okay  with  his  family   &   appreciates  them  adopting  him  but  he’s  still  always  kept  them  at  arms  length .    needs  to  stop  not  trusting  people  for  once .

in  his  canon ,  i  have  it  that  he  fucked  off  to  australia   &   basically  made  a  pocket  universe  there  to  keep  away  from  the  world .

he  is  insanely  powerful .   cas  said  that ,  at  his  full  power ,  he  would  be  able  to  destroy  the  host  of  heaven  “with  a  word” .

his  power  isn’t  just  because  he  is  a  cambion .   if  the  antichrist  was  as  easy  to  make  as  just  a  half  demon ,  there  would  have  been  another .    a  virgin  birth  requires  a  lot  of  ritual .     it’s  something  that  takes  a  lot  of  time   &   planning   &   can  only  happen  once .   he  is  more  than  just  a  cambion  because  of  his  virgin  birth .    it’s  that  which  makes  him  the  antichrist  rather  than  just  a  cambion .

his  powers  are  activated  when  lucifer  is  around ,  but  it’s  never  said  that  they  disappear  if  lucifer  goes  away  again .    jesse’s  powers  stopped  getting  stronger  after  lucifer  went  away ,  but  what  he  had  gained  stayed .     when  lucifer  later  returned  later ,  jesse’s  powers  grew  even  stronger  again .   

his  powers ,  when  he  doesn’t  know  how  to  use  them ,  are  sometimes  used  without  him  realizing  it .    some  things  may  happen  because  of  him  unintentionally .

i  will  add  more  later  but  it’s  like  4am .

[crystalelemental]

With Book 4 in FEH out of the way, I guess it’s time to talk about the stories so far.  Book 2 is still the best, in my opinion.

I don’t think I’ve really talked about this, so let me explain.  Book 1 sucks.  It’s nothing, it doesn’t even try.  The only hint of events occurring is that Veronica’s possessed by some evil dragon god of Embla, but that never got resolved in any way, and has really never been brought up again.  We’re so far outside of that plotline that Veronica’s basically a dedicated ally now.  Nothing about that book had a plan.

Book 2 had a plan, and a structure, and it worked.  It wasn’t flashy or interesting, and I can respect anyone whose stance is that Book 3 or 4 had a more interesting concept.  I personally liked the cast overall for Book 2, even though some got limited screen time and Surtr’s about as boring a villain as you can have.  But Book 2 wins because Books 3 and 4 flopped.

Book 3 flopped because they backed out.  The idea of the realm of the dead is cool, and facing off against the god of death is cool.  But the god of death is about as stock standard evil as you can get, with no actual plan beyond “swell the ranks of the dead.”  Why massacre these worlds?  Why does she need to kill Eir a million times to create more of the dead, shouldn’t you have plenty?  Like it doesn’t add up.  And Eir starting out as the concept of Merciful Death was amazing, that was the best setup possible.  And then it turns out no, she’s not even associated with death, she’s with the life dragon in opposition, none of that was real.  Oh okay. Way to undermine your entire theme for nothing I guess.  Also I hate to be like this, but I actually dislike the Veronica and Alfonse as Thrasir and Lif thing.  I thought it was substantially more interesting when they were presented as the ancient rulers of their kingdoms.  But then no, it’s just Veronica and Alfonse, and while Thrasir continues to get nothing except being omnicidal for funsies, Lif gets all the heavy drama and dialogue and focus, because god forbid this story stop riding Alfonse’s dick for five seconds.  Book 3 had interesting concepts that just didn’t pan out, and the characters all wound up being less interesting than they initially started out.  Also, let’s be real.  For a fucking DEATH GOD, they sure had no problem working around her ability to inflict absolute death in the most standard way possible.  Which kind of immediately nerfed Hel’s threat level for me, not gonna lie.

Book 4 started out interesting, immediately tanked harder than I’ve seen anything in this game tank, had a redemption arc, and then decided it had enough of success and ended in a pathetic squelching fart noise.  Fairies and dreams?  Awesome.  Aesthetic approved.  But it takes them like two chapters to introduce Plumeria as the fucking wet dreams fairy, and immediately all sense of this being serious is dead.  They even had the audacity to outright explain that no no, she may be the lewd fairy, but she doesn’t actually like that job!

Listen guys.  I get it.  You know the sexy outfits and character designs sell, but you also know that people are insane, and they somehow expect the slutty fairy to present this concept of being exclusively available to them so you can sell that fap bait.  I really get it.  But oh my god you could not have handled this any worse, because now that just feels like rape fetish.  “No no, her job is to be a prostitute, but she’s not a slut because she hates it!” is not the save you think it is, friend.  You’d have been better off either giving her a sadistic streak with this and enjoying toying with people who can never truly have her, or just making her slutty.  That would’ve been so much less uncomfortable.

So until the halfway point, we’re kinda just dealing with the fact this incredibly uncomfortable character just exists around here.  And then Freyja drops.  And initially it’s like oh, I just appreciate there’s an evil fairy whose costume design isn’t a fucking disaster, she actually looks good.  And then they have her motivation being assuming complete control over dreams by taking her brother’s power, and ensuring that the dream world can’t die like it almost had.  And they introduce this really cool concept of her taking in abandoned children and giving them a new life as the fairies, and...well...

Plumeria.  Again.  Okay, so it wasn’t quite enough that we had a fairy who’s apparently forced into being the wet dreams fairy despite hating it, now she’s also a child who was abandoned by her mother and is desperately seeking to be loved.  This is...this is next level of discomfort.  Plumeria’s character bothers me.  Like sure, fine, I get that this isn’t a badly developed character or anything, but it’s never really addressed how absolutely fucked up this is, and it’s especially disquieting considering this is IS’ sexy character for the book.  This is their sex appeal pandering character, and this is the direction they wanted to go.  Just...ew.  Come on, guys.  Have at least a bit of class, will you?

But the rest of the book at least continues to amp things up.  Are Peony and Sharena actually swapped around?  Freyr is dead, and Freyja is now literally unstoppable within the dream.  Oh shit, Alfonse is fucking dead.  There’s all this cool stuff happening, and then the final chapter happens.

Are Peony and Sharena actually swapped around?  Who cares!  Game’s not gonna tell you, because “it doesn’t matter.”  Well good, glad that was a huge mystery that didn’t need solving so nobody bothered.  Why even bring it up?  The message of “It doesn’t matter” only works if there’s a crisis of identity and you’re getting the support of your long-time friends.  Instead it’s just a mystery thrown in for nothing with no value, and the “it doesn’t matter, you’re my friend” comes from someone Sharena has no actual memories of and has only been around for like...a couple of hours or however long these events take place.  It’s a completely meanningless subplot that goes nowhere and does nothing.

Freyja went from the villain tormenting the protagonists to suddenly having empathy toward everyone at the drop of a hat.  They set up the frustration of not understanding why we’d fight so hard to return to reality when dreams are more comforting, but that doesn’t really establish much about Freyja herself.  We get exactly one moment, where she calls for Triandra and Plumeria only to realize they’ve died, and feels sad about it.  So when she gives up and everyone returns to reality, everyone’s back.  Triandra and Plumeria are fine.  Peony and presumably Mirabilis are fine.  Alfonse isn’t actually dead so what was the point of bringing it up?  Oh, but Freyja’s dead.  How?  Don’t...don’t worry about it.  She just is, okay?  Also if both masters of dream are dead, and the dream world was already dying before...how are the fairies still there?  Wasn’t the point that all the old ones were dying because people from the real world (don’t even get me started on that bullshit) gave up on dreaming, and thus they needed to make humans into fairies to keep the dream world going?  How are you all here as fairies?  Explain??  Game?!?

And then they just...loop back to the start.  Like nothing happened.  Because nothing did happen.  For all the interesting setup, all the interesting concept behind the new characters, and especially behind Freyja as an antagonist...it goes nowhere.  The ultimate defining feature of this book was “Pointlessness.”  Nothing mattered.  No one did or accomplished anything.  Except I guess killing the god of another realm, good job guys.  I just...I don’t get it.  What was the point of any of this?  Maybe Book 5 is going to focus on Triandra and Plumeria wanting to join up and have you help get Freyja back, so there’s continuity, I don’t fucking know.

I honestly don’t know where I’d rank Book 4.  I want to put it above Book 3 based on concepts and the fact that Freyja was actually interesting, just rushed to her development in the last book so it felt forced.  But on the flip side, Book 4 was incredibly pointless.  At least stuff happened in Book 3.  Sure it undermined its entire theme and purpose, but stuff happened!  You can’t say stuff didn’t happen!  But I can definitely say that Book 2 is the only one I think turned out well.  Because it was self-contained and made sense.  Yes it was simple, but using simple tools to tell an effective story will always be better than trying to reach for complexity and falling flat on your ass.  And yes, IS, I’m telling you maybe you should stop trying.  Between two consecutive failed books and some of the Forging Bonds events of the last year just...completely doing nothing or even hurting the characters presented...maybe just...don’t try to be complicated.  Because you’re not doing a good job.

[jq37]

Let's go final bloodkeep ep breakdown!

**spoilers for the tomb of ultimate evil**

I was originally kind of annoyed that dropout wasn’t working when I wanted to do this originally, but it’s actually kind of a blessing in disguise now that I think about it because it means I get to rewatch and discuss the ep in light of the bombshells Brennan dropping in the BTS video.

As I watch the Previouslies, I realize I’m still not over the fact that Maggie named her kid after Leiland. It was so sweet an unexpected. 

So, at the start of this episode, Brennan must have realized that his plans are pretty much jossed because the 4 baby blessing was *very* not on the docket  

“Absolutely, Lilith’s got 25 strength.” Idk why that’s so funny to me. Maybe because I think Rekha was asking whether Lilith was allowed to carry her, not if she was physically cable but Brennan was like “Of course she can carry you. She’s an absolute unit.”

Leiland’s first move? Drawing all the enemy fire. Markus’s first move? Immediately hiding. In fairness, my dude is a rogue.

Lol, spiderweb baby bjorn.

“We’re evil but we understand communication and consent.”

Nat 20 from Old Pickering! Finally he’s useful!

Watch a bitch call lightning! A different bitch, but still.

Amy’s childish delight at the prospect that there might be a bomb in the goblins is so good.

I love how on board everyone was for the mystery potion.

Did Hork exist before this episode? I have no memory of him existing.

Nat 20 for Sohkbar!

Brennan is really so good at all of his on the cuff J'er'em'ih nonsense.

Erika yelling, “Sanctuary!” a la Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I like that Lilith calls her spider kids to defend them by going, “Get ‘em ladies!” and then Brennan decides one of the kids she summoned is Jason.

“I really am sorry. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done…and everything I’m about to do.”

Leiland Jr. MVP!

I love that Lilith treat’s Sohkbar as if he’s also a parent.

Two words I’ve learned to fear since I’ve started watching RPG shows: Lair action.

Leiland just BARELY not being on the falling chunk of floor.

Brennan really faked me out on that Jason fall. Man really was about to make me cry over a fictional spider for the SECOND TIME in my life (Charlotte’s Web).

I love Erika screaming over Jason in and out of character separately.

“Guys, this is our element! Knocking people off of things!”

Leiland’s affirmations. Who is doing counseling at the Bloodkeep.

AOE spells are so boss.

“Everyone look at Leiland! He’s doing it!” Aww, everyone finally gets to see him be cool! It’s really wild how much of an arc these guys went through in just 2 days of play. It’s very narratively consistent.

“Oh you fucking freak, you’d love that.”

“Tell him something is gonna happen to his bones but don’t explain it.”

Rekha loudly announcing her ridic amount of hitpoints is on of my fave things

I love how in both campaigns so far, Brennan has had a moment of, “You’re not bad at magic, you’re just depressed.” What an oddly specific thing but also, relateable.

Cell Block Tango ft. Leiland.

Leiland curses one of the Vingury. I’m sure that won’t be important later (I’m lying).

Ify/Markus just refusing to learn Hobbert and Frod’s names.

 Ify: *Trying to do a shenanigan*

Brennan: I see what’s happening here.

DOOR LORE. DOOR LORE. DOOR LORE.

So I guess the real lesson of this season of D20 is always commit to your running jokes because you’ll get free nonsense out of it. (A 19! That’s so painful!)

Jessa just straight eats not-Gollum.

Both Jason and Jessa are very protective of their mom and I love it.

Maggie All elves look the same. (Maggie said F elf rights)

The full 6 seconds of silence from Matt between his saying  he loves J'er'em'ih more than any other animal companion and looking directly at the camera and saying, “Except for Trinket,” very seriously.

Amy: I must become the necro boatman.

Brennan, whose plans have now been entirely womped: :O.

I truly didn’t even consider attacking the boatman. I feel like this is such a good DM moment, because I feel like my reaction would have been, “That’s not how this works,” but Bren just let it happen, which is better both for the story and player agency. I’m taking notes.  

Efink getting validation on her chosen name by the evil statues.

“Kick his ass and you get the power!”

“I’m like a setpiece, not like a guy!”

Sohkbar claims the baby as his ward. This baby is gonna have so many godparents.

“MY DAD SHIT IN A BAG?”

What a wild improv.

I love the ancient evil statues have Lilith’s back on the fact that she should have gotten the promotion.

When Leiland Jr was born Brennan was like, “He’s not gonna do much. He’s a baby.” One ep later this baby is taking turns and fireblasting enemies and talking like he’s the Godfather.

OK so there’s a lair action. Leiland rolls a NAT ONE to not plummet into the Bloodkeep. Brennan clearly is ready to bring out the ghost figurines we saw in the BTS.

The statue Lilith JUST got the blessing from falls which means if she hadn’t gotten it that turn, they would have been screwed. Sidenote: Brennan says it was an instant lose condition for them which is part of why I was surprised that this wasn’t his plan to begin with. He just readjusted everything on the fly and set new parameters. What a good, confidence projecting, quick thinking DM.

It’s Leiland’s turn. He is once again falling to his doom. This time, without the bossa nova music and soothing apathy because he actually has something to live for.

AND HE USES HIS HEX TO TELEPORT TO THE VINGURY HE HEXED BEFORE.

It was JUST close enough. And he almost cursed Olag instead! That decision saved his undead ass!

I love that Leiland is Uncle Leiland to Jason! And later Jessa calls Efink Aunt Efink.  I wanna see evil Thanksgiving so bad.

“You’re really killing it today Leiland!” My boy finally getting the praise he deserves. (Also, wild that this is all still THE SAME DAY)

“oKAY, okay, OKAY, oKay.” –Brennan having a moment

“You wanted us to play evil characters but we’re actually playing evil players.”

Man this episode is truly how Leiland got his groove back, huh?

Boatman rolls a 4 to resist fear. Go Leiland!

“I take off my mask to reveal…I’m sexy as fuck.”

Everyone including the evil statue is hot for Markus.

“Shut the fuck up, Olag. Go kill yourself.” Maggie just has no patience for nonsense (that’s not the kind of nonsense she enjoys anyway).

“Do I take psychic damage from that?”

Lilith gets a nat 20!

Maggie, upon Leiland calling her 'my queen’ for the second time: Just call me Maggie, please.

“THAT’S AN ABILITY  J'ER'EM'IH  HAS?”/“I guess.”

“Lilith, you’re my girl! Lilith, my girl!” They grab hands over the table. It’s such a pure moment.

Brennan after they kill the Boatman: I mean, fuck me I guess.

Leiland goes down. Leiland Jr. goes, “Nah, get up, you’re fine,” and he gets back up. (Brennan at this point has clearly fully leaned in to the direction his players dragged him).

Leiland comes back as Leiland the White. And I just realized! That’s the ghost figurine! I thought that was the figure Bren got for when Leiland inevitably completed his story arc. No! It was the figure for in case Leiland DIED.

Leiland FONZES at Leiland Jr.

Nat 20 from Maggie to avoid falling into the Bloodkeep!

Leiland lets Markus convince him to not kill Olag (for future shenanigans). Leiland instead owns Toby and rolls a 29 to convince Oswald back onto their side. Toby also comes as a zombie on their side. Everything’s coming up Leiland!

Except no, he goes back down immediately and falls face first into the blood pool.

OK, check it. Markus bargains with one of the evil statues to make Olag alive and undead for eternity. The statue is kinda on board but wants to make a trade. Markus basically goes, “Watch this,” and STEPS INTO THE VOID.

Go back and watch Amy’s reaction. It’s so genuinely shocked and concerned. Matt’s is good too.

Sidenote: That is apropos of nothing goal wise. He just wanted to torture Olag.

Maggie gets the final blessing with a quiet, heartfelt speech Brennan doesn’t even make her roll for. The statue tries to get her to put in a good word w/ her dad for it and steps all over the moment.

Ify, about to pull out shenanigans part two, electric boogaloo: I never got a chance to attack on my turn.

He attacks himself and warps back up!

Amy: Is that how you play a rogue????

Why sneak attack damage? Can you sneak attack yourself?

“You’re a liar!”/“I’m a rogue.” Beautiful.

We’re evil!

Oswald dies and Leiland comes back! Hexing Oswald really panned out for him

“It’s all spiders from here!” I wanna start saying that.

Efink cancels out a nat 20 on Sohkbar!

Lilith telling her kids to go find safety is a small thing but sweet.

“You know you live near Goblin Island and you always say you’re gonna visit.”

Markus swashbuckles over to the bloodkeep before he falls. Leiland is ready to jump his bones.

Nat 20 from Leiland! Is that his first one?

AND THEN HE ROLLS TWO NAT ONES!

Classic Leiland.

I love that Leiland is pro J'er'em'ih now.

John Feathers comes back for the epilogue. Rehka is more excited than anyone.

Lilith is voted queen regent of Gorgar! Go girl! And Jessa opens her fashion firm while Jason sets out to the forest. Good for them.

Scream beast babies!

And little Leiland asks big Leiland to get him the head of Galfast Hamhead! Full circle, I love it.

OK so Brennan said this and he was right. Leiland and Maggie have such a wild ass arc. She goes being “that whore” in ep 1 (idr what he actually called her but that’s the vibe he gave off) to “my queen” in episode 6. And like, man. Imagine planning a game where the goal is to lead the players into a PvP free for all and, instead, the only two characters with a legit grievance mend fences so much that one names their child after the other and that one swears fealty to that mom and her child. Imagine failing so hard at your original goal. Wow.

Anyway, that’s it for Bloodkeep! Thanks for hanging in there for me to write this up! I want to say something about the teaser for T.U.S. too but I’ll save that for another post. 

Sidenote: So Matt has been on D20 and Brennan has been on Naddpod. I think this means Brennan or Murph gets to be on Critical Role now. I’m a lawyer and I’m pretty sure that’s how the law works. 

[doppelgangerjoelle]

Of Gods and Men

I got an idea last night and ended up writing 2K words but then I didn’t want to write a whole long fanfic leading up to it (this is basically the end) so I’m just gonna give you a quick synopsis and what I wrote. The summary spoils the writing so read it before or after, I don’t care. I don’t have time to make this a whole fic at the moment. it’s soukoku and get’s slightly naughty at the end but not too much

Context: Chuuya is contacted by the gods asking him to return to their realm as a calamity deity required to complete the cycle of life. They offer to return the power to it’s full glory. Chuuya learns the god that humans named Arahabaki was sent to Earth to bring destruction as part of a ‘divine plan’ until it was captured and sealed by humans. Dazai gets wrapped up in it because he has a ‘divine gift’, being the only one in this generation who can control the power of a god when sealed in a vessel, something humans took advantage of when capturing Arahabaki the first time. Essentially Dazai’s ancestor is the one who sealed it in the first place and the gods recognize the soul having reincarnated into him. The gods summon them to the celestial plane where Chuuya points at the void and yells at the gods. Dazai, who is still very much mortal, suffers under the power of the celestial plane and can barely stand the whole time. In the end it turns out Arahabaki willingly submitted to the ancestor and was sealed away so they didn’t have to hurt anyone anymore until the seal was broken. Arahabaki chose it’s vessel because he was a scared and lonely child. The Chuuya we know is really just Arahabaki without his memories (because Rimbaud had stolen then when he stole part of his power) and raised as a human, he was never separate from him. Making them realize gods and humans weren’t so different after all.

“What will happen if I accept your offer? I become a god again?” Chuuya shouted into the void. The ‘land’ beneath his feet did not move even as he stomped with his ability. The bluish white glow around them only shined a little brighter as his power.

“You will regain your true form, leaving your mortal vessel behind.” The voice responded, from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Right here? On Earth?! Where billions of people are living?! There’s a giant hole in the city where Arahabaki stood for mere minutes! And it was weakened from being sealed. Just how much fucking damage would happen if that came back at full power?!”

“The entire land where you stand would be destroyed, but it is necessary.”

“How much land?! The city? The whole prefecture?!”

“The resurrection of the calamity deity would likely return your island to the depths from whence it came.”

The color drained from the man’s face as his eyes widened as far as they could, jaw going slack. The man on the ground behind him shook, just as shocked as he.

“That’s almost two hundred million people.” He barely heard himself say, only speaking just above a whisper.

“On a cosmic scale, humans are nothing but specks of dust. Insignificant.”

“You’re comparing humans to dust?! Living, breathing people?!”

“Do you miss every rock you kick on the road? Do you mourn every insect you step upon? Do you feel guilt for each blade of grass cut?”

“If I were once one of them, yes, I would. And even if I didn’t, I know they exist so they are important.”

“You do not comprehend the scale in which we exist in. We are gods, humans’ lives are but a blink compared to ours.”

“Do you, too, not look small compared to something greater than you?”

The voice did not answer.

“Even the smallest insect has it’s own life. It knows the world is so much greater than it will ever know but it does not stop it from living. Just because we are bigger we do not deserve to live any more than it does.”

“You are one who has slain his own kind out of a lust for power and greed, and yet you speak of respecting the life of something less than you?”

“Yea, I know how it sounds. And I know what I’ve done is terrible, and nothing I do will ever make up for it. But there’s stuff I can do now to make people’s lives better and I want to do it. I don’t want to leave them behind when I know I can help them. I don’t want to leave people that need me.”

“Even when you will be helping the greater good of all existence?”

“You want me to be a harbinger of destruction of a cosmic scale, that’s not exactly the kind of job I’m looking for.”

“Creation needs destruction. As life needs death. The cycle must continue.”

“You want me to murder innocent people, including all other living beings, just to join your almighty party.”

“We are only asking you to do as you always have. Just because you are trapped within a vessel of flesh does not absolve you of the actions of the god within. Of the memories you have lost.”

“Will I get all those memories back? Who fucking knows how long of destroying everything so you all can rearrange it again however you damn well please? And what about my life as a human?”

“You will likely forget such useless memories. As we will forget this whole discussion. In the grand scheme of things, it is pointless.”

Chuuya scoffed, giving a half crazed, half defeated laugh.

“Do gods even have feelings? Do they know love? Do they feel pain?”

“We have no such need for them. We only feel pain through vessels when we walk the Earth, but we do not usually feel their emotions.”

“Then you could never understand. You could never comprehend humans, and hell, I’m sure bugs have more fucking compassion and empathy than you’re capable of! You say you created created us then why did you give us such “useless” things, huh?! Why let us have feelings at all?”

“We did not give them to you. You developed them on your own.”

“Then why didn’t you? In all your infinite years why did you never learn to care about anything? Is it because if you cared then you know you couldn’t just keep resetting all of creation? You couldn’t keep killing everything you ever made when it started to fall apart? Because you knew it was your fault.”

Once again, the voice was silent.

“Did you ever consider the ones that made you took all those feelings away so you wouldn’t make the same mistake they did? That even when you became corrupt and flawed they couldn’t destroy you.”

When no response came Chuuya inhaled a deep breath, air burning in his chest. When he exhaled smoke followed. When he continued he sounded surprisingly calm.

“You never told me why Arahabaki was on Earth in the first place. How does a god get captured and sealed by humans? Why, of all things, did he choose me as a vessel? I was just a child.”

Chuuya growled when the voice remained silent, but before he could speak again it finally answered.

“Pity. Perhaps even... mercy.”

“Are you telling me the god responsible for destroying things felt bad for the things it had to destroy? One of the beings with supposedly no feelings.”

“We were not given feelings. But neither were you humans. It is... anomalous.”

This time his laugh really did sound unhinged.

“Yea, most people get second thoughts when they have to stare into the eyes of something begging for its life. Especially when that something doesn’t understand that there’s a ‘big picture.’ I’m not even so heartless to feel nothing. There’s no joy to be had in murder, a fight, I understand. But death, no. There’s no meaning in death. You say life can’t exist without death but why should it be rushed? Why should someone decide when it comes? Why can’t it just happen? Just like how learned to feel, why can’t we just let death come when it does?”

Chuuya could feel a long explanation coming, so with a sigh he continued before the voice could answer.

“Look, say I agree and give up my mortal body. What happens if Arahabaki comes back, looks what has happened after sitting pretty in my body for 15 years and decides it wants nothing to do with you gods anymore?”

“The being you call Arahabaki is not something separate from you. The flesh may be your vessel but you are one in the same. You assimilated with the human child whose body you chose, losing all memory in the process. Shedding the vessel will simply return your previous power and memories.”

“Wait...” Chuuya looked down at his bare palms. “Are you telling me I’m what happens if one of you is stripped of all your power and stuck in mortal flesh?”

“A crude way of putting it, but that is correct.”

“But I’m human. Don’t you understand that? I’m human!”

“We explained before that you-”

“No you don’t get it. You said you don’t have emotions, you weren’t given them. But I am one of you and I have them. We’re the same. We’re exactly the same but that almighty power or whatever just goes to your head!”

Watching Chuuya point to the nothingness, Dazai couldn’t help but smile. What did it even mean to be human, he wondered. What separated us from insects or gods? The strength of our bodies? The scope of our understanding? If gods could love as humans, then what really made us so different?

If a god raised as a human could feel anger and fear and jealous and love, then why would all the beings in all the cosmos be incapable?

Maybe they just didn’t want to. Because with all those feelings came pain. Pain and suffering, and on a scale unimaginable. In a life so long they would hurt so much they would become numb. And perhaps they would forget what it felt like to feel anything different. Perhaps they would make themselves feel nothing.

But then, perhaps, one day they would feel again, sparked by something so small, so seemingly insignificant, than they would remember it all again. They would look into their heart and soul and it would all come flooding back. And they would try to stop the cycle they once helped continue only to remember why they let it in the first place.

They would feel anger and fear again. And there would come the pain. And then one day everything stopped.

Nothingness. No emotion, no pain, no thoughts. A void. Only to be thrust again amidst panic and fear. The small things hurting one another. Their screams. And the pain, the pain came again. It roared inside and it roared outside and everything was covered in a black flame. But just as soon as it started it stopped.

Bright blue eyes opened as the sun shined above. The dust had settled, the damage done. Alone and empty, he woke at the bottom of a pit. Such a small thing, so fragile. Driven by nothing but instinct he stood on his feet, wobbling. Not knowing the vastness of the universe, the creature who he was, nor the person who he would be become.

All he knew was that the sky was such an utterly captivating blue.

And he smiled.

“I can’t believe you just yelled at a god.” Dazai said, stretching his arms above his head.

“Well, I’m a god, too.” Chuuya huffed. “It’s only fair.”

“Ah yes, what a wonderfully powerful being you are. So utterly ethereal.”

Chuuya scoffed. “Yea! I’m a god so you should start respecting me! I should be worshiped!”

“Oh yes, my almighty Lord Chuuya.” Dazai grasped Chuuya’s hand as he bowed. He kissed up the back of his hand. “I will worship you how you deserve to be worshiped.”

He only made it halfway up Chuuya’s arm before his head was pushed away, grip still firm on his wrist.

“I will worship you ever day and every night.” He brought Chuuya’s palm to his lips. “I will devote myself to you.”

The ginger simply rolled his eyes.

“Will it please you if I give my body to you?”  His tongue slipped between his lips to the slender fingers. “Will you accept me as your devote servant?”

Heat rose in Chuuya’s cheeks as well as his belly. He blocked his face with his free hand as the other was taken into Dazai’s mouth. He licked and sucked on each one.

“These hands are capable of so much destruction.” His tongue ran along one of his fingers. “I’ve seen you kill a man with your bare hands.” He took one finger into his mouth and slowly dragged it back out. “You could easily kill me. But you won’t.”

“I s-should...” Chuuya stuttered from behind his hand. His knees were shaking and he couldn’t help but notice the growing problem below.

“I would let you.” He kissed the palm once more. “I would be your willing sacrifice. Take my life as your own.”

“Can’t I just... do that while you’re alive?” He avoided Dazai’s eyes, unable to stand the heat in them. He felt the gasp against his palm.

“Chuuya!” He grasped Chuuya’s hand with both hands. “Is Chuuya proposing to me?!”

The red on Chuuya’s face spread as he gaped at the other, mouth hanging wide open.

“M-Maybe!” He desperately tried to pull his hand away. “If you get life insurance!”  

“Chuuuuuyaaaaaaaa!!!!!!”

paypal me $30 and I will finish this replicajoelle@yahoo.com (it will probably be a 15K fanfic)

[fandom-rants]

Plotholes, Story Rushing, and Shoddy Writing In Keyblade Graveyard, Pt. 1 (p.s. there are SEVERAL issues to unpack here)

~~~~THIS CONTAINS COUNTLESS SPOILERS FOR KHIII~~~~

PLEASE NOTE that this will not be in perfect order; there are so many things wrong with the story in the Keyblade Graveyard that I struggle to balance it all without having a raging meltdown. As someone who adored the Kingdom Hearts franchise (yes, you read that right; past tense) and memorized all the lore and played all of the games (save Coded; I just watched that one because it does not look to be worth it at all) and loved the characters, I can only express deep and profound disappointment in the story. The rushed, chaotic garbage mess of a story.

And those who say otherwise? Have chosen to ignore the story for the sake of the ‘happy ending’ (which is a farce; a happy ending doesn’t include Sora sacrificing himself again for the damsel in distress trope).

If you thought some of my other rants were long, you aren’t ready for this one. It’s so long it needed to be split up into parts.

1. Aqua and Ven

a. Firstly, it’s good to know that Nomura is literally incapable of writing a female who isn’t a damsel in distress. Good to see Aqua go “I’m gonna prove how strong I am,” only to need immediate rescuing. Brilliant.

b. So it’s that easy to wake Ven up, huh? His heart’s been linked with Sora’s for Sora’s entire life, it’s been sleeping in Sora’s for so long that Sora has taken on Ven’s mannerisms, but they can just separate without a single hitch, huh? Just like that, huh? And there’s no problem waking up, it takes no time at all, and he can move in his body without even remote difficulty, huh? Basically, there are no repercussions to any of this, huh? I call bullshit.

c. Going back a page, it’s good to know that these guys all showed up at Castle Oblivion and didn’t even bother clearing the place to ensure there weren’t any enemies around to - /snorts with laughter/ - immediately try to kill Ven while he was still vulnerable. Who could have ever expected such a thing, amirite?

d. Why aren’t Riku and Mickey there?!?!?!

e. This was actually so anticlimactic and boring. Why wasn’t Terranort/wtf-ever there to add some drama and tension? Why was it simply ‘grab Aqua, which can be done merely by having Sora show up and beat her up, even though Riku and Mickey got their butts kicked by her,’ ‘arrive very quickly and suddenly at Castle Oblivion,’ ‘unlock it,’ ‘go inside and wake up Ven’? Why was it so boring? It’s something we’ve been waiting for since 2010, and our reward for waiting 8 years is ‘ta-da! Boom, bam, done!’ Did a child write this?

2. The Requisite Romance Scene Before the Final Showdown

a. We have to really sell this romance, or else people will be pissed about the ending! Quick! Let’s have Sora and Kairi share a paopu fruit and leave their friend completely out of it! Riku doesn’t really matter, anyway. He’s not integral to the entire storyline like Kairi!

b. To make it clear, Riku was integral to the storyline while Kairi was not. Something I’ve already mentioned several times. So why in hell did Sora say he wouldn’t have gone through the things in the games if it wasn’t for Kairi, when that girl hardly entered the storyline at all? It was Riku who started the whole story off, Riku and Kairi both whom Sora was looking for in KH1, Riku only whom Sora looked for in CoM, Riku only whom Sora looked for in KH2, Riku only whom Data-Sora cared to run after, Riku only whose concerns made Sora go through the Mark of Mastery... but yes. It was only for Kairi that Sora went through the things he did. Riku, keep sitting on the sand all night while these two pretend you don’t exist. Perfect.

3. We Arrive and Everyone Fights Against Heartless

a. Is this what we came here for? Is this what Xehanort planned when he told us to come here? To sic a bunch of heartless on us? How does this in any way complete Kingdom Hearts? How does this in any way help Xehanort’s overarching goal? Hell, ignoring that, why would he sic heartless on us when we’ve defeated them a million times? How in god’s name do we fail against them this time????

b. Can I just say that it is beyond suspense of disbelief to have Kairi and Lea finish their fights before Sora? Or that the entire group would finish, see Sora still fighting, and then just run forward without him???

4. Terranort

a. How is he back? No, seriously, let’s look at this. He was brought from the past. But when you defeat Young Xehanort, he says he’s going to return to the past and live his life up to the present. But Terranort can’t do that! Which means Terranort can’t go to the past and stay on as Ansem the Wise’s apprentice. Which means he can’t trick the other students into becoming nobodies - so how is Saix there? How is Axel there as Axel? How do the others retain their memories of being Nobodies? He also can’t become a heartless or a nobody himself, since he’s not returning to the past to do so (because we save him instead of killing him)! So how the hell could Ansem and Xemnas exist??? You can’t argue about alternative universes because those haven’t been introduced in the plotline, and even if they had been, that still wouldn’t explain how this universe had an Ansem who took over Riku and a Xemnas who existed whatsoever. What the fuck.

b. Why in five flaming hells is he just waiting there at the beginning? No, again, I’m being serious. Why? To defeat the seven keyblade wielders? Why? They’re apparently needed to clash with the thirteen Xehanort clones, so why on earth is he there? For sad plotline feels? 

c. Even that doesn’t make sense. After all, Aqua had all night to warn Ven about the state she’d last seen Terra in. Apparently, that was not a topic she thought necessary to bring up. Go figure.

d. How the fuck does Xehanort even have him??? All those who played Birth By Sleep, I can only assume you all have dealt with the same frustration and confusion as me. How did Xehanort retain control over Terra’s body after Lingering Will defeated him?? Because I did. Allllll the way back in Terra’s storyline, I defeated Terranort. So how did he show up in Radiant Garden? The blast of light (or whatever) from the end of the storyline should have, at the very least, turned him into a heartless. Right then. From the start. So how did he even survive long enough to get to Radiant Garden, let alone return to the Keyblade Graveyard? What had been the point of that final battle?

5. Lingering Will

a. I was waiting for him to show up. It makes less than no sense to have him only do so at Namine’s behest after Ven has already been KO’d by Terranort. That entire debacle in the Final World should never have occurred, simply because Lingering Will should have shown up the first time.

b. I laughed in disbelief when I saw Terra’s keyblade turn into a hooked whip and then a giant fuck-off gun. I already thought the transformations were pretty random, considering a keyblade is supposed to serve its own purpose and strength without needing to turn into a door or a frying pan or a pair of yo-yo’s, but to see Terra’s do the same thing when no one else’s had? Oof. Painful.

c. Lingering Will was Terra’s mind, but apparently he doesn’t need that to reconnect with his past body! (Even though it was never with said body; it was always separate, so...?!?!?!) Instead it disappears from the plotline (like so many other necessary details) and acted as KH’s version of Fallout’s Mysterious Stranger, apparently deciding to disappear to wherever said stranger goes after doing its duteous cameo.

6. That Entire Debacle With Everyone’s Hearts

a. There’s just... so much to unwrap here. The fact that it even happened, which I’ve already noted the plot failure there. The fact that Kairi needed protecting not once, but twice, only to fall, anyway. Is she even capable of being something other than a damsel in distress? (Looking at the rest of the story of this world, I can do nothing but snort at the fact that I even bothered typing out that question.)

b. The whole shit with Chirithy. We get it, KH. You want to peddle your stupid mobile game. (A game I’ve been playing for over a year now, like a good, dutiful KH player, only to find that the plotline shows up roughly once every 300+ “chapters.”) This Chirithy shit isn’t plot; it’s bullshit. Nice to know Kairi’s heart was definitely lost, though, because bullshit on that, too!

c. Why on earth are everyone’s hearts just hanging out on other worlds? Why are they in worlds I’ve specifically already gone to in this game? Why not any other worlds from any other previous games, or worlds I’ve never been to? Oh, yeah. To bring back the annoying shit from KH1, where you enter fragments of worlds for no reason in order to fight some random heartless. Is this plot?

d. The whole ‘Dive Into the Heart’ thing being the equivalent of ‘the power of waking,’ which is also apparently how Mickey could get into the Realm of Darkness (and here I remember Mickey saying he could only do that by being in a world when it fell to darkness! Silly me). Just admit you had no idea what the hell you were doing when you made up that ‘power of waking,’ Nomura. Shit.

e. Let’s go a bit farther, because the whole “Dive Into the Heart” thing was awful. Why is that a thing? Why do you need to ‘dive’ into a heart (which, he didn’t, he didn’t, he just dove into different worlds to find said hearts, wtf) in order to save it from... what? Death? Darkness?? What the hell even happened here-

f. How is Kairi fine and waiting for us??? This actually made me think Sora had fallen to darkness (or dreaming, or what the fuck ever), because how in hell was Kairi okay? Namine said flat-out that Kairi’s heart had been lost like the others, and that such was the reason why Sora had found her in Chirithy-Verse (it isn’t any ‘Final World,’ just as it isn’t anything I’m ever going to take seriously). So how was she perfectly fine and, uh, able to... uh... meet with him??? In some sort of... Heart Realm Between??? What happened there?!?!

g. I get that this floaty, hand-holding scene was supposed to once again peddle the romance in some last-minute bid to make us okay with the bullshit self-sacrifice move Sora bounces into with all the finesse of a Sequel Coming trailer, but all it did was piss me off (as every romance scene did in this shithole of a game). There has been next to nothing on the whole ‘romance’ thing other than us being told ad nauseum that it is a thing. If you can’t even give me normal, non-romance scenes between the two, then all it’s going to be is forced trollop that you expect me to swallow simply on your say-so. If you can’t give me a lead-up to the romance, don’t be surprised if you fail to sell it to me. And if you fail to sell the romance to me, then why the hell should I ever find any part of that ending all right?

7. The Time Ret-Conning

a. This one’s a minor gripe, so I’ll just say that I despised the multiple times the game acted as if the previous failures hadn’t happened. ‘Here you go; try again!’ It makes no sense when you realize Sora actually did things to ensure we got this second chance, even less sense, somehow, when you see that neither Sora nor anyone else acts any differently to rewatching the same thing happen all over again - like, what the hell kind of time travel bullshit is Nomura writing here? Is there any rhyme or reason to this shit whatsoever?

8. That Entire KHUX Fuckery

a. I honestly cannot believe we had to watch Sora get saved by Ephemer. A lot of people loved the cameo, but the cost to the storyline is far too high. Our main character needing rescuing in his Final Battle is always bad writing; what’s the point of watching the main hero’s growth if it turns out he still needs to be protected? This other character should have been the one we followed, not the one needing rescuing! And hell, what was the point of all that growth if, in the end, it still wasn’t enough? Simply based on storytelling, it was poorly done. But the fact that he got rescued by a long-dead (I hope; everyone has a bad habit of just living forever through Bullshit Time Mechanics) character from another KH game? Disgustingly shoddy. Thanks for nothing.

b. What the fuck was that triangle spam for??? I was there when the challenge came to KHUX, for those with the highest scores to appear in the game. I honestly thought their names would just be in the credits or something, because how could you possibly add them in without making it the most horrendous bullshit possible for a video game? Answer? You can’t. That entire thing is something I’ve been trying to delete from my memory since I saw it. What a fucking travesty.

9. "I Can’t Do This Alone”

a. You are literally talking to someone, your best friend, and saying you’re alone. What the FUCK.

b. What strength did you get from Kairi, you twit? Riku, on the other hand...!

TO BE FREAKING CONTINUED... Edit: I know Nomura is BS-ing some answers to pretend he didn’t fuck up. I don’t care.

[gravelghosts]

14.07 character notes

I did the watch notes thing again. Click for thoughts about Sam’s attitude toward hospitals, Dean’s happiest memory of his father, Jack as a mirror for Oskar, and that other time Cas had a sick child to take care of.

NICK

Lol you thought I was serious. We’re not doing that. Moving right along.

DEAN

I’m putting Dean first because I have a lot of yelling to do about him this episode, and I should probably just frontload it so I can refer back easily in later sections, right? Right.

Here’s a thing I’ll be screeching about a lot: the fact that of Jack’s three dads, Dean is the only one with prior parenting experience. He had a parenting role in Ben’s life, back in S6, and of course he spent basically his entire life raising and caring for Sam when John wasn’t there to. He’s been through the experience of watching Sam die, and watching Sam throw himself voluntarily into the Cage, and he’s been through the experience of Ben being kidnapped by demons.

Dean himself has explicitly identified his role as a parent in Sam’s life, and the agony of seeing him suffer and being powerless to stop it: “And I had to be more than just a brother. I had to be a father, and I had to be a mother, to keep him safe. And that wasn’t fair. And I couldn’t do it.”

So — when Cas points out that it’s different, losing a son — Dean’s been there. In a way that Sam and Cas really haven’t.

Interestingly, he’s also probably the last of the three to think of himself as Jack’s dad, or surrogate dad. I’ve talked about this before, but Dean’s circle of care is very small, and very all-consuming. (This is why he’s kind of nonplussed by the idea of Sam trying to look after all the Apocalypse World hunters in 14.05.) He cares and devotes himself so intensely to the people inside of it that he can’t imagine having anything left for the people who aren’t.

He’s actually been doing really well, the last few seasons, with blurring that boundary and allowing for the people he cares about to also have autonomy and be trusted to look after themselves. Sam is the obvious, and wonderful, example. Cas is more of a challenge because of the deep psychological scars of his going rogue on the Kelly Kline mission and winding up dead, but Dean’s been communicating his worry and doing his best to be healthy about it.

Up until now, I think restraining his protective instincts about Jack hasn’t been a challenge for Dean; he hasn’t classified him inside the tight circle of family whose existence defines his own. This episode very much challenges that.

Dean’s definitely become fond of Jack and embraced him as part of the family, but hasn’t really spent as much time with him as his other two dads, especially in the time since Jack lost his grace (and Dean was off being Michael and all that). He also probably feels like his initial violence and distrust toward Jack disqualify him, to an extent, as a parental figure; that he hasn’t earned the right.

Last episode was a fun sort of taking-under-wing hunting trip together, and I think Jack sees Dean in a parental role, but I don’t think it was really until the final scene of 14.06, when Jack collapses, that it hit Dean that oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck he’s our kid.

Well. I just wrote a 500-word preamble. Let’s get to the actual events of the episode, shall we?

You know how I was saying Dean, unlike Sam and Cas, has prior parenting experience? He immediately shows a blind spot in that experience: he’s not sure how seriously to react to physical illness. “Weird stuff happens to kids all the time. They get coughs, bloody noses…”

Dean probably got trained by John, from a young age, to treat any sickness as a mild, passing irritant, to be ignored until it’s better. He’s seen Sam through some pretty major physical crises, but always of blatant supernatural origin: the visions, demon blood addiction, the trials sickness. He doesn’t know how to react to something that seems serious but (potentially, at least) purely physical in nature; until it becomes life-threatening, he’s always learned to treat such things as Not a Big Deal.

Of course that’s been even more the case since they’ve had Cas around to heal physical ailments, minor and major alike.

In that way of thinking, Jack’s illness is kind of a Schrodinger’s crisis: it’s either crushing in its magnitude, or it’s nothing at all. As Dean’s pacing in the hall, he’s trying to convince himself of the latter.

The immediate, hands-spread, “Is he okay?” — yep Dean very much wants to be living in the Everything’s Fine reality.

Everything’s not fine. And we promptly switch to crisis!Dean — presumably driving the Impala way too fast, leading the way into the ER, shouting “We need a doctor!” as if that is not the general function of the ER, yes.

It’s interesting that the birth years Dean waffled between for Jack are 1999 and 2000 — both of which would put him over the age of majority. That means that Jack has the power of verbal consent, and to ignore medical advice; he’s a legal (if fictional) adult. Maybe this was Dean thinking it’d be simpler than establishing one of them as a parent or guardian (which is probably true? I don’t actually know how this works), but it feels significant to me as a step in establishing how old Jack really is, in TFW’s eyes. No one else is ready with an answer, and they could quite believably say he’s younger or older than 18, but Dean makes that call, which plays into his later respecting Jack’s autonomy and bucket list desires.

I’m also guessing Dean has a lot of experience with lying about his age when under 18 — he was left on his own enough, with big things to deal with, essentially parenting Sam, but without the legal authority to make his own choices unless he faked being older than he was. That’s probably front-of-mind for him much more than it would be for Sam, who always had Dean looking out for him, or Cas, who has never been a child.

(Interesting also how he jumps from 2000 to 99 back to 2000, as if briefly panicking that 2000 isn’t long enough ago to make him 18, before remembering, yes, May birthday, that would’ve already happened, 2018 minus 18 equals 2000, we’re good here.)

“When Jack became human I was worried, y’know given what we do, that — that something would happen to him, but I thought it’d be a vampire, or a ghoul, not a freaking cough.”

This is an interesting line to me in that Dean wasn’t there when Jack became human — I mean technically he was but at the time they had much bigger and more urgent Lucifer-shaped fish to fry. He’s projecting his personal narrative back to that point, but the worry he’s voicing centers very specifically on what’s been happening since he has been back: Jack going on hunts with Cas.

Last episode, he pointed out that Cas is an insurance policy on those hunts, in a way that made it pretty clear he’s been thinking about this.

“What we do” is very much defined to include Cas here. Good yes good.

Anyway this line could read sorta as some Buckleming narrative myopia but Dean’s also prone to a bit of narrative myopia so I think it fits.

Also, looking back to last episode, Dean brought Jack’s cough up a number of times before it became obviously serious — “still with that cough,” “in the meantime we’ll get you a crate of cough drops.” Given that Cas and Jack have been off on hunts for much of the time Dean’s been back and haven’t been around the bunker a lot, it seems like he’s paying pretty close attention to this, and to Jack’s well-being.

I think a lot of that was fairly subliminal for him until last episode, but the events of 14.06 have kicked Jack into focus for him and his parenting instincts into overdrive.

To the doctor, after the ridiculous tests dialogue: “What is happening to him, right now?”

Actually a very useful cut-through-the-bullshit question to ask, Dean! This doctor is kinda unhelpful.

Yeah she should’ve maybe led with “total systemic failure.”

Hospitals are really not great at people telling other people information that they probably want to know. Sigh.

We come back from commercial, and I love how in sync Sam and Dean are about the usefulness of continued hospital hoping. This has a lot of painful echoes all the way back to S1 and “Faith,” when the brothers were at odds about how to deal with a medical crisis: Dean, fatalistic and unimpressed by authority, checking himself out without Sam’s knowledge; Sam with his wild optimism and conviction that they’ll find an alternate solution. Now they’re on the same page, and communicating about it: a rational degree of investment in medical expertise, a rational choice to move on to the next possibility.

Also a lot of echoes of 2.01, with Dean in ghost form and finally identity-differentiating to the point of being shocked and hurt his dad isn’t pursuing paranormal solutions to save him.

Of course John then goes and chooses the most toxic one possible, and more or less curses Dean to repeat his mistakes.

Sam and Dean aren’t doing that now; they’re using their resources and the community that they’ve built up over the years. It’s really striking to see how much more they have going for them, how much less alone and desperate they are. (It’s also striking to think back to John’s misanthropic attitude toward other hunters, and how it left Sam and Dean isolated and unaware of the networks of people who could have helped them in so, so many different situations. Fucking hell.)

WELL ANYWAY the gates on the Dean & John emotions have been well and truly opened now and we’re not even anywhere near the fishing yet, stand by for feelings

I’m gonna skip speculating on this whole swimmy vision and hearing thing for now. Y’know. It’s a thing. We’ll see.

Hey remember when I said Dean loves making sandwiches for people? Yeah. Dean loves making sandwiches for people.

Dean’s been in Jack’s shoes: knowing he’s dying, reconciling himself to it, wanting to live life while he’s got the chance. You can see when the empathy of Jack’s situation hits him like a gut-punch: yeah, he gets it. He’s devastated.

He also gets that his devastation shouldn’t be Jack’s problem. That his role is to be there for Jack.

This is really quite a wonderful example of the evolution in Dean’s ability to care for people without being consumed by it; he empathizes with Jack, and understands his need for independence, and understands his own appropriate role. Rather than furiously denying the possibility of Jack’s death, he devotes himself to giving Jack what he wants in the time he has left.

The amount of faith Dean puts in Jack during this driving scene, oh my god. He makes comments, but he never panics or reaches for the wheel; he challenges Jack just enough, and celebrates his triumph. This is the version of John Winchester’s parenting that Dean literally dreams about (11.04). He’s decided to be a father, and the very first thing he does is provide Jack with the fantasy father Dean always wished he had.

Jack then comes right back at him by identifying the closest Dean ever got to that fantasy — fishing with his dad — which he diagnosed just based on how Dean talks about things, without Dean ever having verbalized, or maybe even realized, it himself.

This memory actually stands in stark contrast to 10.09, when Cas pressed Sam and Dean about their positive memories of John, and the one they came back with involved a forbidding, protective authority figure — “Son, you don’t like me? That’s fine. It’s not my job to be liked. It’s my job to raise you right.”

I think that is a genuinely positive memory for both of them — but it shows the type of frame they’re using when they look for positive memories.

Dean wouldn’t have pegged a fishing memory as his favorite memory of John, because he never believed he had any right to that kind of emotional fulfillment from his father; that it was a valid thing to seek. And here he is providing it for Jack, and here Jack is explaining it to him: “The stuff I’d miss, it wouldn’t be things like Tahiti, or the Taj Mahal. I’d miss more time with you. I’m getting that life isn’t all these big, amazing moments. It’s time together that matters. Like this.”

(A side note: while as a kid Dean was taught not to seek emotional fulfillment or “time together” from his father, he did have opportunities to seek it from Sam. This played a big role in the development of his codependence; he wasn’t allowed an emotional reliance on literally anyone else in the world. See 1.01; “I can’t do this alone.” “Yes you can.” “Yeah, well, I don’t want to,” or 1.16; “But there’s got to be something that you want for yourself.” “Yeah, I don’t want you to leave the second this thing’s over, Sam.”)

Dean knows that this kind of togetherness is something he values, and he’s gotten comfortable enough to verbalize it occasionally, but his instinct is still to defensively couch it in operational, minimizing terms: “Bait and beer, you are a cheap date.”

Back at the bunker, and Cas is home with a potential solution: the archangel grace and spell. Dean backs Cas’s play much as he just backed Jack’s, and you see Jack trusting it for that reason — he looks to Dean when Rowena asks him if he’s ready. It’s no small thing, to accept a possible solution when you’ve worked so hard at being at peace with your own death — that was a lot of Dean’s character arc in S3, actually. He’s been there.

None of the possible solutions to Dean’s deal worked out, either. But they were still worth trying, and he gives Jack the go-ahead here to hope.

Which is also sort of a statement of faith in Jack: that he’s strong enough to deal with it if that hope then gets crushed. (Like Dean’s did.)

The relieved arm-tap when it appears to have worked, followed by the hand over his own face — Dean acknowledges first Cas’s, then his own relief.

We see Dean regressing a little bit at the end of the episode — falling into familiar patterns of blaming himself and internalizing what’s happened. In this case, he’s quite clearly not to blame, and it’s sort of a half-assed effort to justify it being his fault, but he still feels like it is.

I think the kind of emotional openness and vulnerability we’ve been seeing from Dean this season is a conscious effort for him, but it’s also a leap of faith. It doesn’t feel instinctive to him, and when it’s positively reinforced, that helps, but when something bad happens, it feels like a rebuke: that he’s made the wrong call in going against his instincts.

CAS

Presumably materialized from his unexplained location last episode the moment Dean told him Jack was in trouble.

Castiel this is all your fault for abandoning Jack when he needed soup. Don’t go gallivanting off to parts unknown when your soup is the only thing keeping your adopted nephilim child alive.

Cas’s “I don’t know what’s wrong with him!” is rather desperate and intense, and addressed directly to Dean; his eyes don’t even flick over to Sam.

Honestly, I expect that Cas is feeling rather guilty about failing to take the cough more seriously than he did? I mean, he’s been hunting with Jack for much of the last few episodes, from the cough reveal in 14.03 through 14.05. In his shoes, I’d be looking back at every moment I could’ve done things differently.

Oh my GOD. I just remembered Cas being alarmist about Nora’s baby having a fever back in 9.06. Maybe he’s over-corrected; he’s learned that human illness is not always as bad as he thinks it might be.

That fever in 9.06 also had a lot of interplay with the extreme experience of human frailty and emotion: “Nobody told you. Nobody explained. You're just shoved out kicking and screaming into this human life, without any idea why any of it feels the way it feels, or why this confusion, which feels like it's a hair's breadth from terror or pain. You know, just when you think you do understand, it'll turn out you're wrong. You didn't understand anything at all. Guess that's just how it is when you're new at this. You know, it wasn't that long ago when all I'd need to do to ease your pain was touch you.... You’re very warm. Is that normal?”

Maybe Cas has been touching base with Dean regularly already for reassurance about this whole cough thing, whoops I melted

“He was stabbed through the heart and he exploded.” I enjoy a little classic dgaf Cas spewing angel facts at innocent humans.

Throughout the waiting-at-the-hospital sequence, Cas is the closest to Jack — holding him up in the ER, sitting on the nearest couch, standing by the door, inside with him while Sam and Dean are talking. (Dean is often the farthest, moving the most restlessly, except when he’s centered between the other two.)

Then Cas goes and puts his trenchcoat on Jack and squeezes my heart into tiny little bits.

The scene where Sam and Cas talk about Dean’s investment in Jack is A Lot. Let’s see:

First off, Cas is running off on a dangerous errand alone, as usual. Dean’s occupied with being the father he always wished he could’ve had, so he’s not available for his standard worry routine, and Sam steps up to fill his shoes. But they also both kinda fail to follow through on that; they’re both too calmly trusting of each other’s capabilities.

Sam pointing out that Dean was pretty rough on Jack, at the beginning, might or might not be the first Cas is hearing of it? I have no idea how much they’ve discussed Dean’s grief spiral of early S13.

Cas declares his intention to leave, then stops himself to ask about how Dean’s taking this. It’s interesting, because in recent months Cas has been fathering Jack more than anyone else has, and probably hasn’t had as much time to spend with Dean and gauge his emotional state; I get the sense that he’s asking about Dean more broadly.

But then Sam narrows in on the differences between losing Jack and losing other people they’ve lost, and Cas makes the fatherhood leap from there. Which is a reminder — to me, maybe to Cas and Sam too — of how Dean raised Sam, and the times he lost him.

I mean. Cas was there invisibly watching Dean rake leaves. He knows.

Castiel what are you doing with this toy car, you do realize how appalled your husband will be, right?

Have you been taking Jack hunting in this thing?

Did Jack pick it out? Did he like the color?

Fuck.

I think in Cas’s faith in Sergei’s spell we see a little bit of his past patterns cropping up — feeling like he failed (by not paying more serious attention to Jack’s condition sooner), jumping with single-minded focus on the first solution he discovers. I mean, not that they were ever not going to try whatever options at their disposal, but I think Cas goes quickly to believing it has to work out of his guilt over the situation.

We also see Cas pressing for good news as soon as Rowena tries the spell. He needs it more urgently than either of the others.

When Cas charges off on his phone call to Sergei, he goes straight to the kitchen — time  to go back to what you know, Castiel, make your nephilim some soup!

Interesting also that Cas frames Jack as the “son of an archangel” (to Sergei) where Sam described him earlier as “Lucifer’s son” — it seems like he is explicitly positioning Jack as a scion of Heaven, whereas calling him “Lucifer’s son” carries less, I guess political, weight.

I think that Cas has spent a lot of this episode kind of blindered by his own desperation, except when he’s called on to see the situation through Dean’s eyes — in his conversation with Sam; when Dean starts beating himself up at the end of the episode. Both conversations bring his awareness and judgement and empathy into focus; he sees things clearly again.

Love is cool like that.

JACK

I found it a little disorienting, on my first watch, how Jack bounces between foaming and seizing on the floor and seeming fairly chipper and upright and trustworthy to drive a vehicle without fainting behind the wheel. But I guess it’s not uncommon at all for illnesses to cycle like that — I know there are a number of diseases (malaria, e.g.) that are characterized by intermittent fevers.

Jack Kline shares my birthday and I will never stop bragging about this fact.

Wait when Jack sags to the floor in the hospital after Dean asks “what does he need to do to see a doctor”... is this strategic? I mean. It certainly gets the job done. Cas doesn’t try too hard to hold him up, either.

You will pry my Slytherin nougat mastermind Jack Kline headcanon from my cold dead hands.

Aw his brain looks like a real brain and all that, lil muffin (no checking for barcode fingerprints I take it)

He has so much trust in his dads, throughout this whole sequence. Jack doesn’t know a single thing about any of what’s happening to him right now, but he goes with it when they take him to the hospital; he goes with it when they decide they’re done with that. Even sasses our Unhelpful Doctor quite charmingly. A good boy.

I talked in the Dean section about the significance of giving Jack a fictional birthdate that grants him legal majority. Honestly the whole sequence of TFW providing information about Jack is really moving as well as comedic — he’s never officially existed before, and they’re declaring him, defining him. They’re giving him Kelly’s last name and knowing his birthday and declaring his father irrelevant — exploded — and deciding that he’s an adult person, that his choice and individuality matters.

This MUFFIN thanking Rowena for saving them all from Apocalypse World, he is absolutely deplorable

(He’s also totally manipulating her in his perfect little muffin way and he knows it, God I love him.)

Jack is good at manipulating people precisely because he does it with this absolute happy honesty, like he’s not saying anything that’s untrue, he’s just choosing the things to say that will make even Rowena’s heart melt out of her boots.

Y’know, I think that this sequence — hearing Rowena’s rant, thinking about Lucifer — is actually a turning point in how Jack’s coping with all this. He’s like, yeah, okay, I’m taking agency over not being like Lucifer, I can take agency over how I want to spend whatever’s left of my life, too.

How about the fact that Jack and Rowena have never formally met before but he has heard the story of her and Gabriel and remembered it enough to ask Dean about it. Heh.

Someone should write the missing scene of TFW+ discussing Gabe/Rowena with varying degrees of horror and Jack overhearing them and Mary being like EARMUFFS

“Since I’ve been alive, everyone’s assumed I would be this special person who goes on forever.” What a disarmingly childlike way of describing it. Stab me now please

The ARM out the WINDOW my SON

Forgive me for being too verklempt to really type anything about this whole driving scene. It’s A Lot.

Jack is so stunningly fearless and intuitive about people. It’s interesting given that his first experience of being alive was getting shot at (by Dean, no less). But, to the extent that he was conscious before his birth, his primary experience was the understanding that he was loved. Kelly instilled that certainty of love and trust in him, and it’s made him such a fascinating, wide-open mirror to all our main characters.

Honestly we should have all known to not trust Sergei the moment he described helping Jack as like rebooting a computer. Everyone who’s ever assumed Jack will function mechanically rather than emotionally has been proven wildly wrong.

It has to involve a painful resetting of expectations for Jack to suddenly have this hope of a cure — he’d reconciled himself to his impending death, and now he has something that might be a new lease on life. Resurrecting that hope can be even more painful than losing it in the first place.

The cut implies that Jack looks very specifically to Dean when Rowena asks him if he’s ready. Cas is being doggedly optimistic; Sam is being cautious. But Dean is the one who understood his situation enough to take him driving, and to understand why he’d want to; Dean is backing Cas’s play here, so Jack is too.

He hedges expectations in the initial reaction to the spell, though — “Something.” (Cas, desperate for optimism: “Something good?”) “I think so! Definite improvement.”

Is Jack really that much worse than before? I mean. He isn’t foaming at the mouth this time. I guess we’ll see.

SAM

Has presumably arrived back from his hunt with Charlie sometime between Jack fainting and Cas’s arrival. I’m assuming Dean called them both promptly and that Sam made it back first; Cas would have gone to assess Jack the moment he arrived.

Which means that Sam’s been dealing with Dean’s terrified pacing and out-loud logic wandering for an indeterminate amount of time, and probably sidelining his own emotional reactions until they know more. “Whatever’s going on with Jack is probably complicated” — Sam’s not going to react, or at least not going to verbalize his reactions, until he knows what he’s reacting to.

That said, he’s very much on alert and ready the moment Jack needs them, and leads the charge into his bedroom. Sam’s focusing very narrowly on the things he can do — help Jack into the ER, provide his name and birthday.

He’s not doing the lying, though — when the truth won’t suit, he falters, and Dean and Cas take over. (One making shit up, the other stating the truth even though it’s wildly unsuitable for the situation. Dorks.)

Again, once they have actual doctors, Sam is doing his best to provide the relevant information: “He’s been coughing, there’s been blood, it’s been going on for a while,” even as they’re being hurried out. There’s some of Sam’s faith in institutional goodness here — providing all the information, being reasonable, doing things right, has to somehow help the outcome.

His and Dean’s attitudes toward the medical system remind me of their responses to the existence of angels back in the day — Dean’s personal demands couched in suspicion and distrust; Sam’s over-politeness, like he’s always assumed there are fixes and forces of good in the world, they just don’t usually have anything to do with Winchesters. (And specifically with Sam. See: Galahad. Also this fic I wrote, if you like.)

This dialogue about running more tests is… kind of stupid. (Tests? Tests. Tests! Duluth Duluth?) But it does show more of Sam being positive about the medical institution, and appearing a little betrayed by how useless the information they’re getting from the doctor is.

Copy-pasting from Dean’s section:

We come back from commercial, and I love how in sync Sam and Dean are about the usefulness of continued hospital hoping. This has a lot of painful echoes all the way back to S1 and “Faith,” when the brothers were at odds about how to deal with a medical crisis: Dean, unimpressed by hospitals and fatalistic, checking himself out without Sam’s knowledge; Sam with his wild optimism and conviction that they’ll find an alternate solution. Now they’re on the same page, and communicating about it: a rational degree of investment in medical expertise, a rational choice to move on to the next possibility.

Sam and Dean are using their resources and the community that they’ve built up over the years. It’s really striking to see how much more they have going for them, how much less alone and desperate they are [than S1/S2]. (It’s also striking to think back to John’s misanthropic attitude toward other hunters, and how it left Sam and Dean isolated and unaware of the networks of people who could have helped them in so, so many different situations. Fucking hell.)

Sam is particularly responsible for building that network and formalizing it — in Rowena’s case, he’s responsible for deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt and opening up to her about Lucifer, thereby strengthening that alliance — and I’m so proud of him about it.

Dean relishes fucking with the hospital’s authority by sassing the doctor as they leave with Jack, while Sam doesn’t like flouting them but does it with absolute conviction.

There are some things to quibble with about the Sam & Rowena scene and its relationship to past canon, but I do really like how he’s read her: she’s generally ruthless about parent/child relationships and inherently biased (for good reason) against Lucifer, but she can’t resist an opportunity to swoop in to Dean’s rescue. I always enjoy a manipulative Sammy.

Sam bringing up how rough Dean was on Jack to start with makes me wonder if it’s something he’s been thinking about a lot, more generally. It might be fresh on his mind in part because of Dean’s treatment of Kaia, too.

When Cas returns with the potential solution, Sam remains cautious, continuing to weigh the odds and options.

He must have been alone with Rowena in the bunker for a while? Those are some conversations I’d be interested in seeing play out.

Again, despite his reservations, we see Sam being the one to actually give the grace to Jack; he’s falling again into a natural leader position.

ROWENA

Other people have gone into detail about the canon discrepancy with Rowena not knowing about Jack, and how it undercuts some really important character stuff for her from last season. It kind of bums me out so I think I’ll just move past that?

(For reference though, Rowena’s line in 13.21: “Do you know what your grace is making possible right now? The heartfelt family reunion of Sam, Dean, Cas, Mary, and your very own son Jack. That's right. Your wee boy's over there, and he'll be so glad to see his three fathers. Of course, as far as he's concerned, they are his father. And you? You're nothing to him. Or me. Or anyone now. Nothing.”)

Since I do have some degree of investment in reconciling canon, I’m gonna handwave a little that Rowena knew of Jack and was willing to leverage him to taunt Lucifer, but never actually placed him as the smiley child among the many random strangers coming through the rift. She was also pretty exhausted and spun out at the time so. Maybe she forgot his name? I’ve forgotten names before. It happens.

Meh.

ANYWAY Rowena was so excited when she thought she got to rescue Dean from another mystery ailment and taunt him about what’s bi being bi and boop his nose, she’s probably put out that she’s being deprived the opportunity and is exaggerating her reaction for effect.

That’s my canon now.

“The cells are gobbling each other up” sounds like something even Unhelpful Doctor should have been able to explain and yet here we are.

“I know you’re not speaking to me, Magda, basically no one is speaking to me.” Pfff

Sergei’s spell, as Rowena reads it, is: “Potione hac, restitutus eris. Omnia erunt sicut erant!” — which translates literally to: “By this drink, you will be restored. All will be just as it was.”

I wonder if Jack reminds Rowena of Oskar.

I bet he does.

Ow.

Back in 10.23, Rowena described Oskar as “a peasant boy — his family helped me through some difficulties, 300 years ago.”

Now, let’s be real. Later in 10.23, Crowley says Rowena “threw herself upon the mercy” of this family and found in them a “kindness she had never known,” which all sounds pretty nice. But that’s Crowley being theatrical. In real life, Rowena was probably absolutely insufferable, and these Polish peasants probably wanted to kick her out more times than they could possibly count. I.e., they probably didn’t feel that differently about Rowena than the Winchesters do.

My point being that Oskar didn’t come into her life in some sort of snark-free, uncombative, enlightened festival of good feeling; Rowena was still Rowena. Oskar would have been a foreign creature to her, though: a genuinely innocent, genuinely loved child. She didn’t have to do the work of loving him; he would be loved regardless (unlike Crowley).

Does the genuinely innocent, genuinely loved child of a family that somehow tolerates the endless irritations of Rowena McLeod sound like anyone we know?

And remember what happened to Oskar? He had a terminal illness.

(Rowena cured it and granted him immortality, and then later killed him for the Mark of Cain spell and whatnot. But I digress.)

I repeat: ow.

LANDSCAPE & SETTING & ALL THAT GOOD STUFF

I like how the ER is absolutely packed, a bunch of cops are just leaving, and there are several people covered in blood. If I were the lady at the desk I’d be annoyed too.

I’m mostly ignoring the Nick bits but I do like how the reporter he’s talking to has a currently vacant nose piercing. I’m assuming that the actor does and makeup didn’t cover it up? Anyway I appreciate when one-off characters get those tiny little bits of depth, like, a reporter with nose stud/ring she doesn’t wear in professional contexts.

Our nice rocky river with dense forest around looks like something you’d get in a mountainous context, and given that Dean and Jack are out on a big driving day and Cas is also making some kind of significant car journey, I’m gonna say that they actually are in the mountains, instead of the time-honored Supernatural tradition of Kansas Pretending.

The Rockies are only six hours west of Lebanon (the Ozarks are a little further away to the southeast), so yeah. Let’s go with the Rockies. Cool!

[linkspooky]

What do you think about Shuu screaming about wanting to eat Kaneki? It sounded so much like he was regressing and definitely not going forward, I was so upset when I read it. His speech sounded so beautiful and heartfelt and I feel like it got ruined. Is it actual comic relief or maybe Shuu is regressing into the past, like Amon, Akira and Hide, and Touka dying her hair like in the first half of the series?

I’m going to break down Shuu’s speech the best I can. I want everybody to remember this is my interpretation, if you interpret this speech as a perfectly happy speech on Shuu’s part and growth for his character that is fine. 

I think there is a lot of genuine love represented in this chapter. Tsukiyama is obviously trying to look past the situation, and realize what he wanted is for his friend to be happy. That’s a simple and basic desire and it’s not a wrong one. What Tsukiyama talks about, are the simple pleasures in life that Kaneki would lose in killing himself, and also the ones he would lose if he disappeared completely into the role of king.

This matches up a lot with his birthday poem. I’ve always loved Shuu’s poem, because it’s so beautiful, kind, and accepting. It’s such a stark contrast to the empty sounded messes that are Furuta and Sasaki’s birthday poems.

It will be alright.

The world will grow to be kind.Everything will be okay.

Even if it’s only one person, someone will definitely understand you.

Someone will surely love you.Even if you are hurt due to loneliness, someone will surely embrace you.

[x]

Haise’s:

Someone said this:

“Even if you have no memories of being loved, for as long as you have memories of loving someone, you can continue to live.”

…But how is someone who has never been loved be capable of loving someone else?

A child who wasn’t able to receive the minimal love they required at the time they needed it the most will continue to gaze at the illusion of affection and never know how to love until the day they die.

Well, how about me? Can I continue to live?

[x]

Furuta’s:

How stupid.

What’s so joyous about birthdays, I wonder.Never in my life have I ever felt grateful for being born.

But for you people, how are you still celebrating your life despite how hopelessly stupid or ugly you are?

I am genuinely impressed.

Doesn’t it make you want to die?

[x]

Remember, Haise is generally considered to be the most mentally healthy and sound of all the Kaneki’s. Even the Kirishima birthday poem sounds like this.

The children who were meant to be born, died. The vision of the future convulses.

Someone declared that they’ll crush only half of the broad bean.The gene is in a severe bipolar state.The nucleic acid sequence having no recollection of its own actions.

All of the fingers that were supposed to be connected from start to end, are scattered around; it’s annoying.

If you look closely at the knot, you can see that it can be surprisingly easy to untie.

[x]

And Touka is the one whose spent this arc trying to reconcile Kaneki, and inspire him to live again. Even Hinami’s wish for Kaneki and Touka to live sounds like this.

“You’re going to be depressed and miserable but live I guess....”

It makes sense for their to be one character who genuinely believes in a happy ending and a happy life, and one character who believes he can make it there. It makes sense for that character to be Shuu, because from the beginning what Shuu is and always has been is somebody who appreciates the beauty of life. He’s a social sciences major. Not only is he a musician, he’s a great singer, and he learned several different languages just because he thinks linguistics are beautiful. 

Shuu’s good qualities have always been his own appreciation for life. His bad qualities is his own unhinged indulgence to that pleasure, that he would take it at the cost of others. Shuu’s always been a character focused around happiness which I think is still an important arc to learn... really the last 40 chapters even with Kaneki’s want to live satisfied, he’s been mopey and miserable almost the entire time. 

It’s not enough to simply live and survive. 

On the other hand, Shuu is clearly once again doing what all the other characters in the manga do and transferring their wishes onto Kaneki. Karren’s last wish was meant for Shuu and Shuu alone, and also herself. 

It’s exactly the same as as Hinami transferring her mother’s last words to live, which were clearly meant for her onto Kaneki.

The one who should be doing this is Hinami. The one who should be living with Karren’s sacrifice is Tsukiyama. Especially since Kaneki murdered Karren in cold blood. 

Yet we see once again the characters are transferring their desires onto the empty Kaneki, and using him as a mechanism to fulfill them. Itori and Shuu’s speech are both lies, but Itori’s was meant to convince the ghouls into passivity while Shuu’s to rile them up into action.

Generally I would say, for this speech Tsukiyama’s eyes not shown = Lies. Tsukiyama’s eyes shown = Tsukiyama’s genuine feelings.

Once again I spent the entire first half of this talking about how this is Tsukiyama’s genuine sentiment.

THen we have that old chestnut. “I get to eat Kaneki.” Soemthing that has been proven long ago, was actually just Shuu’s misconstruing of his own feelings, which is once again what Shuu is likely doing here. Shuu wants Kaneki to live and he wants to confront Kaneki for real this time, but I don’t think he wants to save Kaneki from all the conseqeunces of his actions, or live entirely for Kaneki’s own actions as he’s presenting himself with in his speech. 

If anything, Shuu’s speech is about how the members of Goat should perceive Kaneki as a person with his own wants and needs, not just the instrument of their vengeance. 

At the same time though, Shuu kind of dehumanizes Kaneki in the opposite direction. Goat doesn’t exist for the sake of Kaneki’s happiness, all of those ghouls who had lost loved ones to the CCG their grievances are still valid and should not be forogtten.

The ideal should be found in a medium between the two, but Shuu himself is not the most emotionally smart of people. It makes sense that he’d try to correct and then swing far and wild in the opposite direction. 

As I’ve said in my previous asks too, at the moment there is no Kaneki to confront. If Shuu decided right at this moment “Fuck Kaneki I’m going home,” that would be great for his character yes but it would lead to absolutely nothing. Tokyo Ghoul also sometimes has to work as a story and a sequence of events too rather than just character piece after character piece.

I think the editor’s text is important to understanding Shuu’s viewpoint too. He still sees himself as a sword to Kaneki, which is to say not a person but rather an asset to use. Both of those viewpoints are equally dehumanizing, Kaneki being a tool for Goat, and Goat being a tool for Kaneki, and ideally what should happen eventually is Kaneki the person and also Goat’s individual members being recognized and cared about as people too, and more than just the ones that Kaneki individually cares about as people but we’re obviosuly not there yet and we can’t really get there with Kaneki as a giant worm either.

Perhaps it’s not the most clear or smart way to tell it, but basically all this chapter does is motivate the characters involved not to give up on Kaneki. “There’s still things I need to say to him” that’s what the majority of the goat members agree upon.

When Kaneki the person is there, that’s when it makes more sense for the flaws in his actions to be addressed. 

[reasonablywittyocsbest]

FRESH NEW OCS, GET YOUR FRESH NEW OCS

Two students, one villain, and two detectives!

If you’re interested in learning more about my children full profiles under the cut

Name: Hikaru Nagahi

Age: 15

Height: Tol

Occupation: Student (UA)

Hero Name: D-Taiyo (Dark Sun)

Quirk: Light Manipulation

Quirk Description: Their skin produces a chemical that allows them to absorb, manipulate and intensify light, but only the light stored in their body. The side effect of this is that their skin is iridescent and they never can stop glowing completely. As they use the light stored in their body they become less and less shiny until they return to their original coloration. The light replenishes most quickly in sunlight, ok in artificial light, and very poorly in moonlight.Overuse of their quirk can lead to heat stroke.

When it comes to manipulation of light, it is not fine enough to produce illusion, but they can produce disks, beams, etc, use it to enhance movement, create shields briefly. Though that’s all when they’re fully trained.  

Etc.: Always a shy, anxious child. Despite their flashy looks they just want to be left alone. This unfortunately is not what happens.  They have always drawn attention from people on the streets, which makes them very uncomfortable; though, their parents rather enjoyed it. The only child of a rather boring middle class couple, after they started garnering attention on the streets, their parents decided their child was going to be a hero and they pushed this vision on them. And being a people pleaser at heart and a perfectionist who refuses to fail even at things they don’t particularly want to be doing, Hikaru has just kind of gone along with it. Up to and including their acceptance to UA.  Due to their anxiety they are very good at making plans but struggle to improvise. Their sin would be Wrath. Their virtue would be diligence 

Eventually they will find their own motivation to be a hero in a deep outrage at anyone who would disrupt the peaceful lives of the general populace for their own selfish gain. Who do they think they are,really, how fucking arrogant.

Name: Sven Fukuzawa

Age: 15

Height: Smol

Occupation: Student (UA)

Hero Name: Tvåsi (Two sided)

Quirk: Bi-functional Goo (bi-goo)

Quirk Description: His body produces a purple goo that can heal or harm depending on his will. When he activates it to harm it turns red, when he activates it to heal it turns blue. while his entire body produces the goo, it is easiest to produce from his hands, though the strongest form is in his saliva. The goo is most effective against living biological things, less effective against natural minerals, and completely ineffective against synthetic substances.  His quirk runs off of starches and sugars, so he eats a lot of them to fuel it, If he over uses his quirk he goes into something like diabetic shock.

Etc.: Being the youngest child of seven, the other six of which are girls, by a gap of five years, he was both spoiled and babied by basically everyone.  Due to his family’s wealth he has had access to the finest education, and the ability to try out what ever activities and hobbies that happened to catch his eye. He was particular to dance and ballet, though he has some skill at the piano, painting, and probably more. He considered going into medicine because of his quirk’s ability to heal, but eventually decided he would make a much better rescue hero, since his goo can also destroy stuff.  He is one of those teenagers that looks 12 when they enter high school and by the time they graduate they’re 6′2 and have stubble. He is half Swedish, on his mother’s side.

He has a happy, carefree kind of personality, having never faced hardship in his entire life. He is spoiled, but always willing to share anything he can. His naivete is his greatest shortcoming.  His sin would be gluttony. His virtue would be charity.

Alias: No More!

Real Name: Shizuko Haranaga

Age: 23

Height: Smol

Occupation: Villain

Quirk: She can make things Not Exist. Going so far as being able to even make people forget it, what ever or who ever it was, even existed. If she wants. She is capable of bringing them back, but it is harder and requires a lot more effort. The more loved/popular/known the person/thing shes trying to make not exist the more difficult.  She can also make parts of things no longer exist, which tends to be easier.. If she uses her quirk too much she gets temporary amnesia, it recovers over time but can be distressing for her.  Physical contact is required, the bigger the thing, the longer she must be touching.

Etc.: Her quirk manifested in a bad sort of way. There was a kid in her neighborhood she did not get along with. They were playing a the neighborhood park and he shoved her. She got mad and grabbed his arm, which she proceeded to make no longer exist.

The police were called in, there was an investigation, and the ordeal took its toll on her. Her parents were warned that since she had such a dangerous quirk they would need to be very strict with her. Around the neighborhood she was treated as dangerous, people would gossip about how unfortunate her quirk was, and she withdrew.

Despite people badmouthing her quirk she was fascinated by it, and spent a lot of time experimenting with it.  Vanishing things in her home. Seeing if she could make one of her parents forget, and not the other. Bringing objects back and putting them in a different place.  The more her parents cracked down on her the more rebellious she became. When she was 16 her parents had another child, and fearing she would be a danger to him, she was kicked out of the house. She had already been falling in with a bad crowd and this only pushed her further along the path to being a villain.

Though, it could be argued her true slide into villain-hood started much earlier. It was when she was 10 or 11 when she realized she could bring things back. She went to see the boy whose arm she had vanished, to try and get it back. It didn’t go well and the boy was furious.  it was pretty traumatizing for her too.

She has a very pessimistic, sarcastic, gloomy kind of personality. She struggles to form attachments to people or objects, since she feels like all things are impermanent, and fleeting. Probably due to her ability to control if things exist.  Her hobbies include crime and eating snacks with the strangest flavors she can find. Her sin would be sloth. Her virtue would be humility.

Name: Noriko Kikiyoshi

Age: 25

Occupation: Detectively

Quirk: Tell the Truth!

Quirk Description:  It is impossible to lie around her. She can expand and contract how far it effects, and can turn it off completely. When it is active she also cannot lie. If she has it active too long she gets a real pounder of a headache.  The kind that makes you lay in a dark room wishing for death until it goes away.

Name: Tomoko Kikuyoshi

Age: 25

Occupation: Detective

Quirk: Psychometry

Quirk Description: When she touches a person or object she can see the past of it/them. The further back she tries to see the more difficult it gets, and the less defined the memories get.  Faces and the written word are generally more unfocused. If she over uses her quirk she has the same side effect as her sister.

Etc. Noriko and Tomoko are the twin daughters of a detective and a crime novelist. Her mother is one of the more popular crime novelists in Japan, and her father was a detective. Her father was killed in the line of duty by a villain who managed to get free while the police were escorting her.

Both Noriko and Tomoko have grown up to become detectives as well, inspired by their father’s legacy.  To their mother’s delight, she loves having detectives in the family to get crime details from.

Noriko is very polite, kind, and sweet.  With a very dark sense of humor. Which she delivers in the same upbeat manner she does everything else. Due to her quirk she often finds herself traveling all over the country to help in various investigations. A couple times she has even been invited to other countries to help with difficult cases.  She loves how busy the work keeps her, and being able to provide assistance in a way only she can. Her sin would be Pride.  She is very good at guilting people to get her way . In her spare time she enjoys collecting cute figurines, brightly colored things, and horror films of every description. Her sin would be pride. Her virtue would be temperance. 

Tomoko, in contrast to her sister, is more roguishly charming, with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for teasing.  She is the typical class clown/prankster archetype but grown up into a real adult with a real job.  A real job which she takes very seriously. Despite her laid back personality, everyone in the department knows she puts in more hours than anyone.  Her is dedication less to solving crime and more to serving victims. She willingly volunteers to work difficult cold cases. And has a fantastic track record, her quirk allowing her to get new information the police may have never had before.  She often drags her coworkers into things, willing or not. Her sin would be gluttony. She enjoys physical exercise, strange things she finds in second hand shops, and very, very bad movies. Her sin would be gluttony. Her virtue would be humility. 

Both sisters are on good terms with many of the heroes on Tokyo and beyond, since in this brave new world cop work and hero work are bound tightly together. They have often found themselves out on the town with sidekicks of every description.

The two live together, more for convenience than anything else. Noriko travels so much it made more sense to share an apartment than for her to have her own. The two own a very stupid ginger cat. They make it a point to watch very, very bad horror films together when Noriko is home.  They are united in their love of incredibly spicey food.